


Small Andalite in a Big World

by Sarifel-Corrisafid-Ilxhel (Sarifel)



Series: The Second Yeerk War [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Time Skips, Told by a Kid, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2019-10-18 11:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17579861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarifel/pseuds/Sarifel-Corrisafid-Ilxhel
Summary: An Andalite born after the Yeerk War ended keeps a journal about the weird and exciting world they live in as everything changes. Along the way, they make friends, learn about the Alliance, and watch as things slowly fall apart.





	1. The Yearling, Pt I

Hello there! If you're reading this, you found my journal! My name is Sarifel-Corrisafid-Ilxhel.

 

Today I am 6.996 standard Alliance years old- That is to say, tomorrow is my birthday and I’ll be 7! Or, I guess in Andalite years, I’ll be 1 year old! Conversions are funny like that. So are Alliance years- I can have six birthdays before my actual birthday! I didn’t, of course- I’d feel old! But I could if I wanted to!

The first birthday is kind of a big deal for Andalites and most families mark the occasion with a trip! Back before people knew how to have fun, they'd take the newly-minted yearling to Elupera, a set of cliffs on the Andalite homeworld with carvings full of wisdom about how to be a warrior. _Shormitor_ , I think they’re called. Bor-ing! Nowadays a yearling's birthday is time for a vacation!

Oh! Did I mention I'm an Andalite? I should have mentioned that! You probably already know what that means, but if you don't, imagine a centaur. Paint it blue! Give it the tail of a scorpion, but fluffy instead of scaley. In fact, make it fluffy everywhere, but not too fluffy. Get rid of the mouth, it doesn’t need one. It eats through its hooves! Give it eyestalks so it can see everywhere all at once! And make it telepathic!

That's close enough to right that I’ll forgive you for forgetting to make it _awesome_. See, I've also got these bright light and dark blue stripes on my back that start at my shoulders and go down to my tail! I call them my lucky stripes.

I'm also a Springer- that means I'm a lightweight Andalite from the mountain plains! I accelerate like a rocket, bounce from rock to rock like a ball, and can go a little faster on hoof than most Andalites! A mountainside might as well be flat ground to Springers!

 

I bounced on my hooves as I tried to peer out the window of the shuttle my family were on. It was my dad, my mom, and me, and we were going somewhere for my birthday! I think! I looked back at them with my eyestalks. <Where are we going again?>

My dad chuckled. <As I said, it’s a surprise.>

I hopped in place to face him. <Are we going stormsurfing?> Stormsurfing was the biggest, best, coolest thing ever- You go to this planet called Proxima centauri b, where the Humans were going to build a colony someday, you strap into a glider tethered to the ground by five miles of steel cable, and you ride 400 mile per hour winds like an idiot. Best. Sport. Ever!

Dad made a face at my mom, and she laughed.

<No Sari-kala, you’re not going stormsurfing, not if I have anything to say about it.> She stretched where she was laying down on the grassy floor of the shuttle. My dad was laying next to her, and she was kind of using him as a pillow.

My family are weird. I’ve been told Andalites aren’t supposed to lay down, but everyone in my family does it! Maybe that’s a thing everybody does, and they just don’t tell anybody? Ooh! Like some sort of secret! Yeah, you shouldn’t do this thing that everyone does, because the old people are cranky and they might yell at you if they found out! Like kissing in public, or playing pirate, or hacking the Pentagon! Yeah, you should never _ever_ do those things, even though every young Andalite does!

I was starting to get anxious- I’d been trying to guess where we were going for a week! We were on the final approach to wherever it was, and I wanted to get it right before we got there! <But we’re going somewhere for my birthday, right? This isn’t some stupid research mission?> I made a face. Every other time they’d been on a research mission, they left me behind with some crazy old lady who collected porcelain figures of cats.

You think my family is weird for laying down, imagine an Andalite that collects glass cats! Cats aren’t even from our homeworld! They’re tiny fluffy dogs from Earth!

My dad smiled. <Yes Sari, this is your birthday trip. No research. See, I’m not even wearing a labcoat.>

<You never wear a labcoat!> I pointed out quickly.

He blinked. <Well maybe I should start! I don’t know Seru, what do you think?>

My mom giggled and stroked his face. <I think you’d look good in any coat or no coat at all, hun.>

<You’re my wife, you’re supposed to think that!> He roared with laughter. <But I appreciate the vote of confidence!>

I peered out the windows again. <OOH. I know where we’re going!> It hit me in a second...and then it was gone. <No, wait...> I peered out the shuttle window again. There had been a planet I saw a couple days ago, big and puffy and covered with stripes! It was colored brown, red, cream, white, more cream, more brown, and a little more red. You know, a typical hydrogen substellar mass. Most solar systems have them, but few have them so far from their star!

That didn’t tell me where we were though. It’s not like it had a sign saying “This is Ribbit 7” or anything!

One thing I did note: it had four really big moons, visible even from a high pass at five million miles out, but they were only visible because they were really bright like they were made of ice or something. Dad said one of them had volcanoes! Ice volcanoes! I wanted to see that, but we never got close enough. And I never did figure out what the planet’s name was, even though I tried looking it up in the Compendium of Alliance Worlds. Third edition, it said. How was it third edition? We hadn’t discovered that many new planets!

Well, the Andalites hadn’t. The Humans had! Pretty much every time they found something, they’d go “Hey Andalites, we found-” <Oh yes, Rocky Iron Ball #217. Yes we know about that one. It was the site of a battle in the Yeerk War.> “...oh. Well we’ll keep looking!”

Silly Humans. They weren’t going to find new things in Andalite space, we already found them all! Well...except Proxima centauri b. That one just sort of snuck in on us, apparently, because we never knew about it! That's why it has such a funny name- The Humans named it!

 

My mom smiled at me as I tried to peer out the window again. <I’ll give you a hint about where we’re going, Sari. It was involved with the Yeerk War.>

I rolled my eyes. <Gee mom, that really narrows it down.> I reared up, forelegs pressed against the acrylic bubble window as I peered out into space. There was a round thing...a planet or...too small. Moon! A moon! Oh. It was dead and absolutely covered with craters. It was also about the color of wet concrete, though the starlit side was extremely bright. Lots of silicates on the surface, I imagined, for it to be so dark and yet so shiny!

I turned my head to the left, and my eyes went wide. We were coming in on the night side of an inhabited planet absolutely covered with lights! Yellow dots and trails snaked across the surface as far as the eye could see, and coastlines were practically highlighted. This planet had to have a massive population...

Massive population! <Earth!> I turned my eyestalks back to my parents. <We’re going to Earth!>

<Took him long enough,> my dad muttered playfully.

I turned and zipped across the shuttle to the window on the other side to see if I could get a view of any Human spacecraft! They didn’t have many, but they were always obvious- They liked to use lots of bright white plating with orange and black accents to make the craft easier to identify from a distance. Lots of sharp angles, too- Humans LOVE rectangles and hexagons. And they used lots of ablative hull panels made of ceramics. That was also silly- No one deliberately engineered a hull that was supposed to be burned up at high speeds in an atmosphere! The maintenance would be outrageous!

The Humans did it though. Don’t ask me why, Humans are weird! They walk around all silly with no tails and only two legs, they wear more varieties of cloth than there are stars in the sky as a protective cover, and sometimes they say silly things with a mouth! An actual mouth! Everything on my planet is either telepathic or doesn’t talk at all, but the Humans talk with their mouth! It was so silly!

But they make lots of good TV shows. Their music sucks but the TV shows are good! My favorite is this week-long show about sharks that comes on sometimes. What’s a shark? I think it’s like a really smooth aquatic dog. What’s a dog? Well it’s sort of like a big pointy cat. What’s a cat? I don’t know, but they’re fluffy! I think they're a type of dog too, because they live in Human houses like dogs do. Wait... Do Humans have pet sharks? I think they do! Yeah so those are dogs too.

Earth has more animals than there are stars, you see. It’s like a gigantic zoo! That’s because the planet is weird too! It’s star is way far away from other stars- a full four light-years from it’s closest neighbor, when the average is about one light-year. The solar system itself is really wide too- A full light-year wide, even though most solar systems are much more compact. So the solar system has fewer gravitational interference events, meaning Earth suffers from fewer meteor impacts. So Earth has mass extinction events less often than average! That means higher biodiversity!

Other things that make Earth weird: It’s got lots and lots of water. Like, too much water. The Humans know more about the far side of our galaxy than they do about their own oceans! This whole solar system is water-rich, really, which is kind of nice but also not really because water and Andalites don’t get along very well. We need it to live, but swimming is supposed to be a pain. I dunno. I like swimming. I hate being wet though. Someone needs to invent a form of swimming that doesn’t involve getting cold!

 

I turned my attention back to my parents. <Where are we going?>

They both gave me a look, but Earth isn't tiny. Knowing we were going to Earth told me nothing about the trip other then there would be blue skies and Humans running about!

They looked at each other. <Should we tell him?> <I don’t see why not, he’ll figure it out eventually...>

My dad nodded definitively. <Sari, you remember when you said you wanted to go to Delaware?>

<Delaware?> I fumbled quickly through my thoughts. <I said California, not Delaware! Nobody ever wants to go to Delaware, not even Humans!> And then I groaned as he smiled mischievously. He tricked me!

<Aw, he’s so cute when he pouts,> my mom teased. I had immediately flumped to the ground in a huff, arms crossed and tail twitching angrily across the grass. Wait...I perked up.

<We’re really going to California? Where?! Yosemite? Mono Lake? San Francisco!> I bounced up onto my hooves again. <Please tell me it’s San Francisco!> San Francisco is really important! It’s on all the postcards I collected! It’s the headquarters of Starfleet in Star Trek, it’s got an actual trolley system, and it’s got fog! Lots and lots of fog! We never have fog where I live.

<Sorry squirt,> my dad offered. <We’re headed to Los Angeles.>

OH! <That’s good too! They have, um...> <What’s in Los Angeles, Sari?> <Um...Hollywood, where they make movies!> <What else?> <The Jet Propulsion Laboratory!> <Yes, anything else there that’s important?> <Disneyland!>

My parents looked at each other again, and my mom laughed. <You could spend all day asking him and he’d never say the thing you’re trying to get him to say, Daltin.>

Dad sighed. <I know, I know...>

Oh! He probably wanted me to say Yeerk Pool. Well, there _was_ a Yeerk Pool. It’s gone now, so I can’t say Yeerk Pool. How can you visit something that isn’t there?

It’s an interesting thing, that Yeerk Pool. We’re coming up on my birthday, yeah, but in a few Earth weeks- I have to say that because there is another planet with a unit of time called Weeks but they’re different- we’ll also be coming up on the tenth anniversary of the victory at Earth that ended major hostilities in the Yeerk War!

I mean, some places didn’t get the memo: The Hork-Bajir homeworld, the Garatron homeworld, and the Andalite homeworld all saw continued combat past what the Humans call VE day. But that was where all the big stuff stopped! There was this whole funny little guerilla movement- gorilla movement? Guerilla gorilla? Pretty sure one of the people was a guerilla gorilla. English is a weird language. Most Andalites never bother to learn it proper and just let our translators do the work for us, but then we miss all the jokes and puns!

Anyways, Earth had this small guerilla group called the Animorphs. You probably know all about that stuff, and if you don’t, where have you been? Under a rock? They should be teaching you this stuff in school! It was really important, they fought the Yeerks for a while and then scored an upset victory when they captured the enemy general just as one of our fleets arrived. It was all over the news! You can’t tell me you don’t know about it!

 

I turned back around to peer out the window eagerly. California! I couldn’t see it- it was dark, all the lights were on, and I’m not an expert on where cities are just by what the lighting looks like. But I was going to California! Best! Birthday! Ever!

It wasn't long before we had gone through the atmosphere and were touching down at some place called LAX. Like “relax”, I guessed, since we were on vacation! That made sense!

My parents rose to their hooves after the shuttle touched down, and my mom nodded as she went over to the door. <Alright Sarifel, what is the first thing you always do when you’re disembarking on an alien planet?>

<Ask to be taken to their leader!>

She rolled her eyes. <No, before that.> She smiled, though. That was important- I was joking, and she knew it, and she appreciated it. That was good!

<Oh. Um, first, you make sure the engines are off and the shuttle is in park. But the pilots should be taking care of that. You make sure the evacuation equipment is set to manual and won’t deploy when you open the door. You make sure the air outside is breathable and the pressure difference won’t suck you out.> I thought for a moment. <You check the weather and make sure you have the appropriate equipment. You start your excursion log. You open the door and step outside. THEN you ask to be taken to their leader.>

My dad nodded and approached the door. <Alright. Looking at this hatch, what’s it set to?>

<Automatic. It needs to be set to manual and disarmed. That’s the, um...green button by the door.>

He pressed it, and the door beeped cheerfully. Yes, I was right! I dashed over to one of the windows...then the other. <The air looks breathable.>

My parents gave each other a look, and my mom gave me an exasperated look immediately after. <How does air _look_ breathable, Sarifel? It’s nearly colorless, generally odorless, you won’t be able to tell just by looking at it.>

I whined. <There are people breathing it, duh! Two Andalites, three Humans, and in the distance there’s some more people and a airplane with combustion engines. So yeah, the air looks breathable!>

<He’s got you there, Seru.> Dad nodded. <But still, Sarifel, come over here and check the readout. Those people might not know the air is unbreathable.>

<How would they not know?> I wondered. <You can’t just ignore that! It’d be like ignoring gravity!> Still, I trotted over to my parents quickly and pressed a blue button- I could have just used thought-speak, but I like pressing buttons!

I’m going to be so sad if they get rid of buttons. There was talk about it- Even Humans could interact with our telepathic interfaces if they concentrated, so there wasn’t any particular need for buttons. But I like buttons! They go beep and boop and click and wrrr and a bunch of other noises!

This one beeped and a holographic display appeared in front of me. <Seventy eight percent nitrogen, twenty one percent oxygen, point nine percent argon, point one percent trace gases,> I read. <Airborne particulate levels are elevated but within acceptable levels. Temperature is a little cool, humidity is decent, no dangerous pathogens detected, it’s not raining, and it’s nighttime.> I made a face. <I already knew it was nighttime!>

Mom checked the data. <You’re forgetting something.>

<Oh yeah! Atmospheric pressure!> I checked it. <No equalization needed- it’s like a two percent difference.>

My mom smiled. <There you go. Now, we don’t really have any luggage or equipment, but you can be in charge of the excursion log...> She opened a panel and pulled a small black band out. I held up my arm- These things go on your wrist and record your memories as you go! Windproof, waterproof, rustproof, foolproof! Later on you can access it in all sorts of formats, ranging from simple video to holograms to a full sensory recall!

She put it on my right wrist by stretching it and sliding it over my hand, and I felt it tighten to an uncomfortable level before it loosened up a little again. It wasn’t going anywhere, and I stared at it for a moment before hopping around to face the door. I was ready to go! My parents laughed, and my dad opened the door after grabbing a small pouch- apparently everything we needed was in there!

I jumped out of the shuttle immediately, four hooves biting into concrete as I darted a little way off and zipped around. There wasn’t much to see- Concrete, nighttime, some planes, some lights- but I was on Earth! I really was on Earth! One of the Humans stared at me for a moment before waving an arm like I should go back to where my parents were coming out of the shuttle, and I did immediately- He had a yellow vest on that looked pretty official, so I guessed he knew what he was doing!

<Sarifel, you have to stay close to us,> Dad said as he pulled me closer to him. <We have to go through customs, and a little Andalite could get lost there pretty easily.>

<We’d probably find him riding the belt at baggage claims,> Mom laughed. <Sari, stay with me, okay?>

I nodded and fell in beside Mom as we walked to and then through the terminal. We stopped several times- Dad had to show some little blue books to people, there was some talking, I got scanned by a BioFilter, and at one point Mom said a bad word because the ground shuttle was running late. Like three hours late.

I wanted to make a joke that we were stuck at an airport forever because three hours is too long, but my dad hates anything related to morphing. Grandpa got stuck as a _kafit_ bird when my dad was little, so...yeah. Not something I wanted to bring up, because then everyone would get all anxious and sad!

<Well,> my dad finally said after five hours of waiting for the ground shuttle. <Guess we should just hoof it. Sari, are you awake?> He nudged me- I was just about to fall asleep and had already closed my main eyes, and I grumbled a little.

<Imawake,> I mumbled. <Is the shuttle here?>

<Afraid not kiddo. We’re gonna have to walk to the hotel.>

<Oh...> I stretched and slid off of the bench I had laid down on. Whoever said sleeping laying down is un-Andalite obviously never tried it, because it’s comfy! I guess you should only do it if you’re safe, though. I was with my parents, so of course I was safe! Dad can beat anything, and Mom can beat Dad, so by extension she can beat anything twice!

Dad ended up carrying me on his back as we made the trip to the hotel on hoof. I fell asleep, I was sure of that- I had blurry flashes from my stalk-eyes of everything around me, but nothing concrete. Nothing I needed to react to. I remember waking up in a hotel room- That was something! One minute, airport. Next minute and a couple hours later, hotel!

Hotel rooms for Andalites are neat. Imagine a big suite. Now imagine the furniture is gone, the floor is grassy, there’s vines climbing up the walls, and all the light is coming from sunlamps in the ceiling. There’s a bathroom, but that’s boring, and there’s a window, which is good but kind of breaks any immersion in the feeling of being outdoors. It’s all artificial-feeling, but at least the grass is real and tastes good!

 

I don’t remember falling back asleep after we reached the hotel, but I must have, because I woke up again at about...um, what time was it? I wasn’t sure! I hadn’t adjusted to Earth time yet. The Sun was up, though, and judging by its angle and speed we were maybe a fourth of the way through the daylight hours.

I remember distinctly being woken up with a nudge. <Hey Sari, wake up sleepy-head.>

I stretched and let out a long exhale as I rose to my hooves. <Good morning!> I continued to stretch for a few more moments- That was one downside of laying down to sleep, I figured out. It’s comfy, but you gotta stretch after, and that makes running away from danger harder.

My mom smiled at me brightly. <You know what today is, right?>

<Um....Tenth of Three-Suns!>

She laughed. <No silly...well, yes, back home it is. But it’s your birthday! My little explorer’s finally a year old!> She ruffled the fur between my eyestalks, and I groaned slightly before trying to fix it.

<Moooom, I had that the way I wanted it.>

<You hadn’t even touched it today,> she immediately countered. <Anyways! Your father’s getting a couple details taken care of. While he does that, why don’t we go for a walk around the city?>

<Okay!> I blinked. <Wait, how would he know where to find us?>

<We’re going to find him, silly.> She turned towards the door. <Now come on, you’ve got a big day ahead of you!>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something I've wanted to do for a while. I have this entire story about a Second Yeerk War planned out, which I even began posting here at one point, but I ran into a small problem with the lore I was writing. Or, more specifically, how to present that lore without cluttering everything up!
> 
> So, I came up with this. Think of this as one big prologue! Updates will come every other week (Alternating with the Other Fates series about the Ellimist screwing with the original timeline).
> 
> For reference, this story starts in May of 2010 and will end in Janurary of 2020.


	2. The Yearling, Pt II

I trotted along at a quick pace beside my mother as we went up a crowded sidewalk. I didn’t know where we were going- That didn’t matter! I was having an adventure! I learned the locals referred to today as May 20th, 2010. I don’t think my birthday always falls on May 20th- the conversion from Andalite to Earth years isn’t precise enough for that- but that was neat!

I didn’t know if my mom knew where she was going- That was more of an issue, because we didn’t have a map. She seemed to know where she was going- She’d been to Earth plenty of times, so maybe she knew this city?

My mom’s neat. Seruli-Mesarinith-Besun, Doctor of Botanical Sciences with a specialization in Exobotany, Subspecialization in ecosystem _Terrabiota_ , domain _Eukarya_ , kingdom _Plantae_. Those really funny words mean my mom specialized in studying plants from Earth! Wait, you ask- Why do Andalites need to study Earth plants?

Because they’re there, silly! That’s what science is at its core- You study things ‘cause they’re there!

Also, apparently Earth has a lot of plants with neat properties- Trees that extract gold from the ground, meat-eating plants that can count, plants that actually make noises to talk to each other, plants that are shy and curl up if you touch them, and this one giant tree named Pando that might be the heaviest organism on the planet. Well, _tree_ is a strange word to use there- It’s one root system with many many trunks sticking out, kind of like a fungus. Except it’s a tree. Go figure!

My dad’s neat too! Daltin-Corrisafid-Indel, Z-Space engineer, although recently he sort of gave up any active research and has been helping Mom with the family garden. He runs and repairs our matter extruders for making the greenhouses with and stuff, and believe me, we need those- Mom’s garden is massive. The Terrabiota Research Gardens, they call it. It’s a full scientific facility with multiple great domes replicating the conditions found on Earth for growing plants in, and it’s the largest collection of Earth plants on the Andalite homeworld. Dozens of scientists work there under my mom, and there’s always some new exciting discovery being worked on.

Recently the scientists who work there with Mom and Dad found out some Earth plants can actually “see” day or night and use that information in determining what to do and when! Before that, everyone just thought they relied on things like air temperature, but length of day and length of night appears to be a thing they measure too!

I saw some neat stuff as we walked through Los Angeles though! There were a few people dressed for morphing- Humans have this rule about wearing clothes for some reason or another, so they wore skintight clothes that stayed with them through the morphing process. To be completely fair, though, I don’t know if those humans could morph. Human sports outfits are weird! They could have been surfers, divers, gymnasts, who knows? All those black body gloves look alike to me! One of them had rubber-bottomed gloves on their feet, which was neat. Feet-gloves! What will humans think of next?

There was also this really weird car that drove itself. It pulled up to the curb to pick up some people, and the entire side of it opened up as we passed it. The front seats faced the back seats and while there was a steering wheel, the person at that spot had to swivel their seat around to use it!

I’ll be honest- While automated vehicles aren’t unheard of, they are actually pretty rare in civilian use on most civilized planets. Why? Good question, don’t know the answer. I think it’s because driving is just too fun to let a computer do it for you, though!

 

A series of flashing images at a storefront caught my attention, and I stopped to see something red and orange flying around on a TV screen. <Mom! Look! Toys!>

<Those are washing machines, Sari.>

I groaned. <Not those! Those!>

<Still washing machines.> Why was she so oblivious? The TV was right there!

<Nooooo! On the TV!> The images on the television changed to the news, and I frowned. <Nevermind, they’re gone now.>

What I saw looked really neat- A small, brightly-colored object that used four rotors to lift itself off the ground and fly around! It even looked like it was operated by remote control! That would be really cool!  I mean... I guess it’s like the remote control toys back home, but that one on the TV used rotors, not antigravity! That made it special!

The absurdity hit me in a moment, and I giggled to myself. Antigravity is special too, it’s just...nothing on the Andalite Homeworld uses rotors, you know? So they’re novel! They’re unique! That makes them look fun, even if they are actually pretty mundane!

We continued on from the strange store full of washing machines and passed a few neat looking places. There was a store that specialized in clothes inspired by alien artwork called “Artificial Skin”, which I thought was amusing. That was what a lot of Andalites called Human clothing at one point, which was absolutely silly. We had bandoliers and wearable pouches. We had ponchos and body blankets and cloaks. We had shawls and scarfs and shoulder-covers. We had full body space-suits! Nobody called _those_ artificial skin...

I hear that kind of nonsense from time to time on the news back home. Andalites are broken up into three groups politically- Those that think other aliens are inferior to Andalites, those that think we should be fully invested in the Alliance, and those that favor a sort of in-between neutral route of neither antagonizing nor uplifting. Me? I’m a kid, so I don’t get a say, but I like the Alliance!

But anyways. Those Andalites First people often still refer to Human things as primitive and try to create as much separation between what Humans do and what Andalites do, even if a lot of it is really similar. They describe Humans in as many bizarre and alien terms as possible to limit sympathy. That bothered me because it was so obvious that my parents didn’t even have to point it out to me anymore. Used to be when I heard “Artificial hooves”, my parents had to gently remind me that they’re actually called _shoes_ , and it’s better to use the Human special words for their unique concepts, just like when they use Andalite terms to refer to Andalite concepts. It was a respect thing.

But now I can tell you that shoes have soles and tongues and aglets and some of them use velcro as a fastener- That’s a fun thing! Velcro! We’d never thought of it on my planet, but apparently it was inspired _by plants_! It was really really obvious in hindsight and counts as maybe one of three things Humans have that Andalites didn’t think of first!

 

Complicating matters with the shoes/artificial hooves debate is that the store called Artificial Skin was actually selling shoes called Artificial Hooves. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or groan, so I did both, somehow. <Mom, why are Humans so weird?>

<Because if they started acting normal, they’d grow tails and then their pants wouldn’t fit anymore.>

I laughed. I knew that wasn’t true, but it was one of those silly answers she sometimes gave. Like I’d ask _Mom, why is the sky red?_ And she’d say _Because that was the only color of paint left at the store._

Dad would chime in something about atmospheric scattering and high altitude dust and some other things that just weren’t nearly as fun as imagining people literally painting the world. Sure, he was telling the facts as they were, and I like facts! But I like stories more, and sometimes, silly makes a better story!

We eventually found our way to the edge of a giant park with lots of empty land covered in tasty looking grass and some small trees. There wasn’t any real rhyme or reason for why it was here- It was just buildings on one side of a street, park on the other. There was a low black iron fence I could have easily jumped over lining the edge of the park, but Mom insisted we had to go in the normal way.

 

Soon enough, we were inside, and as we trotted up along a path for a little while, Mom spoke up softly. <You need to be a little quieter and more reserved here, Sari. This is a special place.> She looked around. <This is a battlefield. It’s where the Yeerk Pool used to be.> She led me to a small white marker just off the concrete trail, and I looked at it curiously. It listed the name of a business that had formerly been there, and that the building had been destroyed by Bug Fighters. Below that was a small blurb about the role it played in the community.

Oh...I’d seen videos of this place before. It was a giant circle of grass, maybe four miles wide, where one of the suburbs of Los Angeles used to be. At the center was a grass-covered crater where the Yeerk Pool itself was, and many sidewalks and trails and benches and trees broke the place up. Little memorials like the one I looked at were laid down for every single building and home. There was a museum somewhere in the park too, closer to the center, and the crater itself was now filled with a giant plaza for memorial services.

<Mom,> I asked quietly. <Why are we here?>

She smiled. <Most families take their children to Elupera to look at the _shomitor_ carvings for their first birthday. It’s a rite of passage- A study of Andalite history, to show you what your ancestors did, to show you your inheritance as the heir of your forefathers.> I rolled my eyes- I knew that already!

She looked around slowly. <But this seems so much more relevant than a bunch of old carvings. The peace created here is what you inherited and live with. Your father and I thought it would be better for you to see where that peace was born.>

I nodded slightly- I understood my family didn’t like to follow tradition blindly, and we don’t do things just because we’re told to. We gotta think about it first! Mom joined the military even though her family said it was improper for a female to do so, so we don’t have much contact with them. And Dad quit the military during the Yeerk War as soon as he could, even though VE day had just happened and the war wasn’t completely over yet. His Dome Ship was part of the fleet sent to Earth at the end, and he found out about something horrible while he was there, so he quit! He said it had gotten to the point the Andalites weren’t any better than the Yeerks anymore.

That was silly, I thought, but I don’t know what he knows that made him say that. He always says he’s very happy we’re friends with the Humans now, though. I think I agree! Humans are neat! It’d be bad if something happened to them.

We continued down the trail for some way, quietly stopping to read memorials from time to time. I asked questions- I had a lot of questions, but I stuck to the ones I thought were better- and I noticed that there was just a bit of activity here today. The closer we got to the center, the more people there were.

My mom noticed it too, and she frowned. <Awfully crowded, it’s usually nowhere near this busy unless it’s one of the memorial days.> She tilted her head up. <And what’s with all the birds?>

<Maybe they’re _nothlits_ ,> I joked. <Hi birds!>

<Oh. Look Elmrid. Andalites,> a voice said brightly.

<Hello Andalites,> another voice responded with zero interest. OH! I blinked up at the birds in surprise. They were Yeerks! Or used to be Yeerks! I didn’t think I’d ever meet a _nothlit_ , but they were all over the place!

My mom made a face at the suggestion that the birds were _nothlits_...and then another face when one of the birds said hi back. I laughed for a full minute as she stared around with mild panic, trying to decide what to do.

<Come on mom, they’re just birds. They’re harmless!>

<They’re Yeerks...> She frowned. <We must have walked into a meeting of The Sharing.> There was a moment where she was conflicted, and it was obvious on her face. The way she turned her eyestalks. The way she held her tail. I was expecting her to say that we should leave, especially when she put her hand on my upper back.

Instead, we started forward again. <Come on Sari, there’s still more of the park to see.>

Huh! Not the reaction I was expecting. We pushed forward slowly, listening to open thought-speak chatter from the _nothlits_ and overhearing verbal conversation between Humans that had been Controllers. Apparently this was sort of like a support meeting- People were talking about recovery and nightmares. They also talked about other things, like sportball and the weather, but that wasn’t what they were here for.

The _nothlits_ talked about shelter from storms, where to get food, and who they had lost. That was sad, and for a moment I felt bad for them. Apparently, some of them forgot they weren’t really birds and went feral. Others didn’t know how to avoid predators and disease. And some mean jerk was leaving poisoned food out for them, which is horrible! You shouldn’t poison anyone!

I shouldn’t use that kind of language, but Mom used that word last night, and I think it fits! If you poison people, you’re ajerk. Simple!

 

So we continued through the park in silence until we reached the central plaza and looked around. It was a simple concrete circle filling what was the ‘surface’ pool built after the original underground pool was destroyed by a gigantic explosion. A different color of concrete, darker than the normal stuff, was used to show where the piers had been.

At one end of the circle was a raised wall of concrete that was highest in the middle, perhaps fifteen feet tall, and tapered down as it wrapped halfway around the circle. On it were names of casualties of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. I got the impression that this was specifically the “good” casualties- most of the names were Humans, with only a few dozen Andalite names from the Dome Ship and less than twenty names for the other groups of aliens. I only counted eight Yeerk names.

<Mom, why didn’t they record the names of all the Yeerks that died?>

She gave me a look that said she was trying to think of a way to be gentle with what she was going to say. <Because...Because nobody here wanted to remember them.> She didn’t add anything else. I frowned as I looked around.

<But there’s room. They could have, right? If they wanted to?>

<I suppose so. Sari...can I ask you something? Why do you care if they didn’t write down all the Yeerk names too?>

I struggled to put it into words for a moment. <I guess...they were people too? Not all of them were evil Vissers and Subvissers. Some of them had to be regular people following orders. And some of them had to be good, had to know what they were doing was wrong. We should remember those people, at least.>

She knelt down and gave me a tight hug. My parents were always trying to teach me stuff, and one of the things they wanted me to learn was that people deserve respect. That meant understanding aliens, including the Yeerks, are all people just like Andalites. And it also meant understanding that there’s no such thing as an “evil” race. It meant understanding sometimes good people do bad things, sometimes bad people do good things, and sometimes it can be hard to tell which is which until the dust settles.

My dad says he prefers the word ‘misguided’ over ‘bad’, on account that nobody starts out wanting to conquer the universe. They just get told it’s a good idea, so they go along with it until someone else can tell them otherwise.

We went around the plaza a bit after that. There were a few smaller monuments to individuals or more specific groups. The Dome Ship monument, made out of Andalite metals, stood out with it’s blue-silver shine and distinct shape. It included, again, the names of all the Andalites that were on the ship along with ranks and department assignments.

An anchor from a ship called the USS George Washington was on display too- Apparently it had been a Human oceanic vessel that was attacked by the Yeerks and sunk, along with it’s escorts. My hearts pounded for a moment as I studied the plaque at the base. I had seen a documentary about that battle. The Yeerks tried to prevent any witnesses from escaping by sinking any lifeboats and vaporizing any sailors they saw, but messages still got out to the Human government anyways. It was the first “official” Human battle against the Yeerks, not counting everything the Animorphs did, and was considered by many to be the beginning of the end for the Yeerk Empire despite the fact the Yeerks won that battle.

There were a few different monuments to the Animorphs that I sort of glossed over. I’d seen them a bunch in videos and pictures. There was one for all of the Animorphs that were lost in the final battle- something like eighteen names were listed- and one for the original six. It’s sad, but only one of them was still around. There was one for Rachel specifically, one for Tobias, Jake, Ax, and Marco collectively that was built after they disappeared, but none for Cassie. She was still around, doing important diplomat stuff, so nobody needed a statue to remember her.

There were other statues too. The Hork-Bajir resistance, the Human resistance that wasn’t affiliated with the Animorphs, and the Taxxon Uprising were all memorialized. I was staring at the triumphant-looking bronze Taxxon statue when my mom called out to me.

<Sari, come here.>

I blinked and trotted over to where my mom was standing at a monument I couldn’t make heads or tails of. It was a very abstract sculpture, almost like someone was trying to convey a sound rather than a visual image. My head hurt thinking about it.

<What is this?>

She smiled just a little. <Can you read what it says? Right there.> She pointed at some alien script around the base, and I frowned.

<No, I can’t read Galard very well yet. What does it say?>

She beamed at me as she guided me a little closer. <Remember what you were saying about remembering the people on the other side? This one is for all the Yeerks that resisted the Empire.>

I stared at it for a moment before darting around to view it from another angle. <This side has English! Huh. Yeerk Peace Movement.> They could have picked a better name, I thought, but I liked it! I felt a lot better about how the Humans were remembering things now that I knew this was here!

After looking at the central plaza, we began to trace our way up another path leading towards the edge of the park. Occasionally somebody noticed us, but Mom would simply say we were just passing through, and they’d leave us alone. That is, until somebody didn’t.

 

A voice called out to me loudly. <Wow! I didn’t think I’d see another Andalite here!>

I turned my attention immediately- racing up behind me was another Andalite boy, only a little older than me! He was a Valley Andalite I guessed, with a long tail for fighting and a heavier build than me. Coming up behind him were an Andalite girl with reddish fur and some old, worn-out looking Andalite who was turning steel-grey. He froze when he saw us, but I think it was more out of shock than recognition or anything.

<Hello,> the Andalite girl called to me as the elder Andalite began to speak to my mother. <What’s your name?>

<I’m Sarifel!>

<I’m Denirit!>, the boy replied quickly.

The girl glared at us both- <Full names, boys, that’s how you introduce yourselves.> She indicated herself with a hand and put on a formal tone. <I am Jeximi-Erinilith-Isun.>

I stared at her for a moment before whispering quietly to this Denirit. <Is she always like this?>

<Afraid so,> he said as he made a face. And then, he puffed up his chest and spoke publicly. <Okay, then you can call me Bobert-Bobathy-McBobberton. The Third. Esquire! Sir Doctor Bobert-Bobathy->

<Making up names isn’t proper either, Denirit,> Jeximi groaned. <Why don’t you want to tell him your full name? I’d be screaming it all day long if I were you.>

<Because you told me I have to, so now I don’t want to.>

I blinked. <What, is he famous?> They both blinked at me, and Jeximi groaned again while Denirit simply giggled madly.

<I will be!> He nodded. <I’ll be famous someday. Everybody will go “Yup, that Denirit, he sure did that thing.”> He paused- <Maybe I’ll be a champion tail-fighter someday!> He flicked his tail quickly to demonstrate, and I laughed.

My mom spoke up quietly. <Okay Sarifel, we should get going.>

<But Mom, there are kids my age here!>

She pushed me along despite my protest, and I noted the elder Andalite seemed to be crestfallen before he herded the other two the other way as they bickered some more. What was going on, I wondered?

<I am sure those kids were nice, Sari, but that Andalite has no honor. I don’t want you anywhere near him.> She muttered to herself angrily. <If I had known _he_ was going to be here...first Yeerks roaming freely, then the Butcher of the Hork-Bajir. There’s your history lesson, I guess. Sometimes evil goes unpunished.>

I blinked up at her. <Wait, that was Alloran-Semitur-Corrass? Wasn’t he Redeemed?>

<Some things can’t be redeemed or forgiven, Sarifel. Genocide is one of them.>

Oh. I turned my eyestalks back to watch the other Andalites as we parted ways. <He looks sad.>

<Not another word until we’re away from them.> My mom seemed to be angry with _me_ now, which completely confused me. Had I done something wrong? I let my head hang and my tail drop as I trudged along.

 

We left the park. I wanted to be angry with mom- This was my birthday, not hers! She can decide to to run away some other time! But I didn’t dare say anything like that to her. Not even when, outside the gate, she stopped and knelt to try and look me in the eye.

<Sari, look at me...> She grunted. <Look at me.> I turned one stalk-eye to look, and she rolled her eyes. <Eyes forward mister. All of them.>

<Fine.>

<Sari, we can come back later after they’re gone. I’m sorry you had to see that, but I don’t want you to have anything to do with war-criminals, okay?>

I snorted. <What would be the point in coming back? I already learned the history lesson.> And, without thinking, I voiced it mockingly- < _Sometimes evil goes unpunished_.>

She glared at me immediately. <Sarifel-Corrisafid-Ilxhel, is that really the way to talk to your mother? Do I have to take you back to the hotel?>

I didn’t answer her. I wanted to- I had a million comebacks! They didn’t bring me eighty-two light-years just to cancel everything because Mom lost her cool! Parents can be irrational and spiteful though- You make one good point when they say something stupid, and suddenly you’re grounded even though you were right. Right and wrong didn’t matter, order and authority did.

So, you know, I let her have her little victory, because I’d lose more if I fought back.

She sighed and stood back up. <You learned something different, didn’t you?> She sighed. <What did you learn from this trip today, then?> She always asked me that question after any outing. Family tradition- Every trip had a lesson, even if it was something small and silly.

I hesitated before voicing what I had really learned. <Sometimes...people can’t let things go.> Why was that the lesson I learned? Well...the birds were birds, not slugs. You can’t fit a duck inside somebody’s skull! And Alloran was there with some kids- probably his grandkids or great-grandkids, maybe? It’s hard to be evil in front of children. They point and laugh too much.

She studied me for a moment as my gaze fell to the ground. She was upset with me, and she knew I was upset with her. Finally, she spoke up again. <Sarifel, why is that the lesson you learned?>

I quickly searched through my head. <Um...> She wanted an actual answer, not _Because I’m mad at you_ , so I searched. I had a reason for it, I was sure of that.

<Because...they were already punished? And once punishment is over, that’s it, and everything should just be let go. It’s unfair for regular civilians to add more punishment on afterwards. We settled on the laws, and the laws were followed. Being vengeful to people who have served their sentence undermines the authority of the laws we established.>

She snorted. <Due process? You’re going to play the due process card now after all the times you’ve complained about it? Still...> She frowned. <I guess that is a good point.> She looked into the park with her stalk-eyes, and for a moment I hoped we were going to go back inside. That hope didn’t last long as she began to guide me away and towards some other destination.

She accepted it was a good reason, she said, but she still doesn't believe it. Parents. What can you do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in keeping with my usual updating pattern, I will try to upload two chapters at a time!
> 
> Next update should come around Valentine's Day!


	3. The Yearling, Pt III

It was maybe another hour of walking along sidewalks when I heard the distant sound of screaming. If I listened carefully, there was something else too- Rhythmic, metallic clanking. Roaring, screeching, squealing. Metal on metal. Something absolutely terrifying was going on in the distance, and mom seemed to be herding me towards it.

<Mom, where are we going?>

<You’ll see,> she said without any trace of emotion at all. She was keeping it a secret!

It was when we turned up the next street and started going up the road that I began to understand the impossible truth. I watched as a train of carts went up a banked track held high off the ground on wooden stilts and down the other, and my hearts thumped immediately- <ROLLER COASTER!>

Wait. There weren’t really roller coasters designed to let Andalites ride- Being restrained can be pretty claustrophobic, and let’s face it. Andalites don’t fit into small spaces nearly as well as Humans do. We’ve got giant butts! I mean, I imagine you could probably have a coaster for Andalites by suspending the Andalites under the track, but what would you do about the tails thrashing about and cutting everything? 

I don’t think that’d really catch on with the older Andalites though. Most people are like  _ Well if you want G-forces you should fly an aircraft or morph into a bird. _ Somehow I think those people are just missing the point, though.

Mom laughed. <Yes Sari, roller coaster.> We were maybe half a mile from the edge of the memorial park now, and there was an amusement park here...I wracked my brain for a moment as I looked for signs. Why would an amusement park be built so close to a war memorial...unless it was already there when the war happened!

<THE GARDENS!> I nearly squealed. I’ve always wanted to go here! I hugged my mom around her front legs immediately. <Thanyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou->

<Sari, calm down, we aren’t even inside yet!> she laughed. 

The Gardens! Everyone knows about The Gardens! You should know about The Gardens! No no, I’ll tell you anyways- One half zoo. One half amusement park. Giant artificial lagoon in the middle. It was frequently raided by the Animorphs to get new morphs, it was shut down briefly due to the Yeerk invasion of Earth becoming public, and then it was a symbol of the recovery afterwards when it reopened! Some parts of the Animorphs movie were filmed there!

I mean, it would be exciting on it’s own, but throw in the history and it was basically everything I could ever want. If it had an astronomical observatory, I would never leave. I mean that wholeheartedly. That was the only thing it lacked!

We went up to the main entrance, and I spotted Dad standing there! He waved, and I ran over to him and gave him a hug too! <Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou->

He pushed on my head a little and laughed. <Hey now, that’s enough squirt!> He glanced at my mom. <So you’re serious about Alloran being at the Memorial?>

Oh! Right, Mom and Dad had probably been talking in private this whole time. Silly thing about thought-speak: It goes a mile through open air if you’re talking at full power, maybe a hundred feet if you’re whispering to one person, but it can go much further if you’re talking to somebody you’re close to! I don’t know the limit off the top of my head, but it’s really far. Some people say that it can be anywhere in the world, but I think that might be one of those romantic exaggerations people make when they talk about mushy stuff like that. Blech!

Mom nodded curtly. <It was him. Sari made some good points, but I didn’t feel comfortable hanging around with a bunch of Yeerks and the Butcher...> She shifted her weight anxiously. <Anyways, are we all good to go here?>

<Yup,> my dad said brightly. <Normally he’d get a little band to wear, but...> He smiled mischievously. <That wouldn’t really work here, would it?>

I tilted my head quickly. <What? Why?>

<You’ll see,> was all my parents said. They gave each other a knowing look, and I shrugged before following them inside. They stopped to talk to the people at the ticket booth and some more papers were shown and some green papers were exchanged for white ones. 

Eventually we did actually get inside. There were people everywhere! We stood in a large circular plaza with a fountain and some buildings. To the left was the zoo, and to the right was the amusement park. According to a giant purple sign there was a new roller coaster called the Stampede, which looked neat! My dad led us to the left and into the zoo section though.

He nodded to himself a little. <Okay Sari, so we can't actually go on any rides just yet. Most of them weren't built with Andalites in mind, so we wouldn’t fit.>

<Awww!>

<But I want you to keep a close eye on the animals. See if there's any you really like.>

I blinked rapidly. Wait, what was he suggesting? Possibly going on rides, but they’re not right for Andalites...keep an eye on the animals to see which ones I liked... Oh! Oh oh oh! Were they really planning on letting me get the morphing ability? I bounced on my hooves for a moment as I considered that! Morphing is cool, no matter what Dad says! 

My mom laughed. <They have plush toys of most of the animals in the gift shop, Sari.> She hit dad playfully. <Don't get his hopes up trying to be mysterious, okay?>

Oh... I stopped bouncing, and I think my tail hit the ground. My mom saw my disappointment and knelt down. <Hey, you'll get to try morphing someday, alright Sari? We still have a whole trip planned for you to look forward to.>

<Might as well just cancel it cause Alloran lives here,> I muttered. She slapped my nose lightly, making me go cross-eyed.

<Now that's enough! You should be grateful we even brought you here->

<Honey, no.> Dad shook his head. <We agreed that was not how we were going to raise him. If he has an objection, he should feel safe explaining it, and then we explain why things are the way they are.>

Mom shook her head. For a while they didn't seem to say anything, but I knew better. They were whispering to each other! Anyone who didn’t know them wouldn’t be able to hear them! But there's another trick too, one you can only do with people you're really close to: Eavesdropping. So that's what I did! 

The buzz of their thought-speak came into focus after a few moments. Mom was talking. <...not how anything works, Daltin. He's going to grow up questioning everything in the worst ways if he doesn't learn order and authority.>

Dad made a face. <Well if what we were doing was going to be a secret, I would have appreciated knowing that ahead of time.> Dad's tail twitched a bit. He does that when he's anxious. He looked around for a moment. <And, of course, Sari's eavesdropping on us.>

I blinked up at him in surprise. <How'd you know?>

Now, eavesdropping on private thought-speak is HARD! You get tired easily and you can only really do it with people you’re really close to, but it’s basically about concentrating really hard on that tickle in the back of your head you get whenever somebody you love is nearby. Problem is, thought-speak also has this quality where you can tell who all got the message...I nearly slapped myself. That's how he figured it out!

Mom huffed and rolled her eyes. <Sarifel-Corrisafid-Ilxhel, how many times have we told you not to do that?>

<Ummm... At least five?>

<Try five hundred and you'll be closer.> She looked at Dad for a moment and they talked a little more privately.

Well I wasn't here to just stand around while my parents argued! I looked up at them. <Ummm, is it okay if I go see the penguins?>

We grabbed a map, and we set off through the zoo quickly. Mom and Dad were still arguing, and even if I couldn’t hear them, the fact they were arguing was making things far less fun than they could have been. I mean, they don’t argue very often, but when they do it lasts a while and can go all over the place until they forget what they were arguing about and make up!

 

I stared through the plexiglass at the Penguin enclosure for a while, watching a couple of the penguins dart around with each other again and again- They’d dive into the water, they’d hop back up onto the land, they’d dive into the water again. They zoomed around like rockets! That was amazing, I can’t swim that fast at all! I mean, I can swim, but Andalites aren’t built for it. Have you seen an Andalite trying to swim? Yeah, it looks absolutely silly! Even Humans are better at it!

I was shaken out of my thoughts by some motion to my right. A human boy had run pu and pressed his nose against the plexiglass beside me. “Huh! Looks like they’re playing tag!”

<Oh. Hello!> I studied the boy quickly- Bit older than me, shaggy dark blond hair, green eyes, a handful of freckles, prominent smile, tight fitting black clothes, no shoes. Almost like a surfing outfit! Neat! I was actually kind of surprised he was more interested in the penguins than me!

“Hi!” He looked at me for a moment. “Sarifel, right?”

I blinked. Okay, that was a bit unexpected! <Um, yes?> I stared at him for a moment- How did he know my name? 

“Hah!” He grinned, and then without moving his lips: <It’s me! Denirit! We came to the zoo too!>

<Oh!> I turned a stalk eye to where my parents were reading some of the signs about the penguins. <Nice morph! I’m sorry about earlier, but my mom was really upset about War-Prince Alloran. She doesn’t like him at all.>

<Yeah, I know.> He turned his attention to the penguins, and I got the feeling he didn’t want to say what he thought of that. That was...understandable, I think? I mean...Dad says Alloran was a good person forced to do horrible things. Mom says Alloran is a monster. I bet there’s lots of Andalites with both opinions, and these guys have probably seen it all.

After a moment, Denirit continued on. <The big one there is named Zipper. See, he’s about to jump into the water and- ZIP! Straight across the pond to the other side!>

Dad came up behind us after a few moments of watching quietly, and he smiled. <Who’s your friend there, Sarifel?>

I blinked as I looked up at Dad, and for a moment I had absolutely no idea what to say, and the silence probably gave away that something was wrong. Well, yeah- If Mom found out, she’d freak out again!

Luckily, Denirit had some idea already. “My name’s Josh!” He stuck out a hand like he wanted to shake hands. “It’s nice to meet you!”

Okay, nevermind. That left me with even less I could say! I mean, if I went along with that, I could get in trouble for lying! But if I didn’t go along with it, I might not get to hang out because Mom would say no! Honestly, neither option looked good, but I was too nervous to come up with something else.

<Um...> Dad shook hands with Denirit gingerly, still glancing at me for explanation. Dad could see that I was nervous, so I sighed and mumbled what I knew and why I hadn’t said anything yet. To my surprise, Dad nodded. <Well then, it’s nice to meet you too, “Josh”. I’m Daltin and this is Sarifel. Over there is my wife Seruli. We’re here for Sarifel's birthday.>

“Ooh! Sounds like fun!” Denirit grinned as he looked around. “Did you know? Later today they’re having an event where kids can get the ability to morph.” After a moment, his eyes widened, and he chuckled before nodding. “Ah, it’s a secret! Got it!”

Dad groaned. <Well it’s not a very good secret if you announce there’s a secret where he can hear.> He looked around for a moment. <Where are the other two? The girl and your, uh...>

“Grandpa, kinda. Long story.” Denirit stretched and put his hands behind his head. “Dunno. They were supposed to- Ah! There they are! Over by the giraffe!” There was a red-headed Human girl and a shaggy black-and-white dog over where he indicated Jeximi and the War-Prince should be. “One second...” He yawned and nodded to himself. “Is it okay if I tag along? Jeximi’s a pain and grandpa doesn’t mind me wandering off.” As he said this, Dad looked at me in the way that said it was my decision. I blinked for a moment, thinking about it...

<Um, yeah! Sure!> I grinned. <We still haven’t seen most of the zoo yet! We have a map->

“Pfffft. The map doesn’t even have everything on it.” Denirit grinned. “I can give you the tour! This place is like home away from home for me.”

<Okay then!> I looked back at Dad. <Um, what about Mom?>

Mom looked over as soon as I mentioned her- Eavesdropper! Eugh! That’s  _ my _ job, not hers! She gave me a grin as I glared at her, but that just got her to laugh. 

Finally, she came over closer to where we were. <What about me?> She studied Denirit for a moment before smiling. <Actually...Uh, Daltin, I think we’ll let Sari go with his friend there, and we’ll go inspect the, um...Rhinosauruses?>

Dad rolled his eyes. <Rhinoceroses, dear. Saurus refers to reptiles such as dinosaurs and their relatives.>

Denirit’s eyes went impossibly wide. “How do you know about the dinosaurs? I told my parents about them and they thought I was making things up!”

<Anyways,> Mom said as she appraised Denirit for a moment, <We’ll all meet back up by the pavilion at four in the afternoon-> She saw the look on my face and understood. I don’t know Earth time yet! <Uh, we’ll come get you when it’s time. Have fun with your friend Sari.>  

 

A little while later, Denirit and I were watching the lions and wondering how many people had snuck into the exhibit to try and acquire one. There were signs posted explicitly forbidding that, which meant it had to have happened at least once, I think!

Denirit demorphed shortly after we reached the lion exhibit, and we were staring into the enclosure from an observation deck. He made a point to tell me what every animal here was named as we talked, which was neat! I was amazed he could remember them all!

<So the big one there with the mane is named Simba. Like the movie, if you’ve seen it.>

I shook my head a little. <I haven’t, actually. The Disney movie, right? I’ve been meaning to watch it, but I got occupied with the Lord of the Rings stuff instead.>

<That’s the one!> He beamed for a moment. <Tolkien is good stuff too, though. Better, actually, since the Lion King is just Hamlet in disguise. Anyways, the smaller lion next to Simba is named Clarity. Not sure why they named her that, Simba dated Nala in the movie.> He thought for a moment. <I think she came from another zoo?>

I could only shrug. I had no idea what to say to that, since I haven't watched the movie. <So what about the really small one over there? The, um, cub?>

<Oh.> He made a face. <That’s David. I wish they named him something else.>

<Uh...why did they name a lion cub David?> Seriously, I wracked my brain pretty hard, but I couldn’t think of a single thing involving lions that name made sense for! <Is that because of the, um...David in the lion’s den story?>

Denirit wracked his brain for a moment. <I don’t know that story, sorry. But maybe?> He frowned and looked around, and after a moment he cheered up. <Ooh, the warthogs are out!>  He darted across the pathway to the exhibit on the other side and I followed to see where he was excitedly pointing into a field. <That’s Miss Piggy, and that’s Mister Pig.>

<Hi!> I waved at the warthogs for a moment before realizing how silly that was. <They don’t understand that, do they?>

<Nope, only five groups of animals on Earth understand thought-speak. Great apes, corvids, parrots, cetaceans, and...> Denirit stared up for a moment as he thoght. <Elephants! Yup, those five. I think. There could be others, but the tests are inconclusive. Dr. Lynn-Robbins would know more!>

That was a name I didn’t recognize. <Who?>

He laughed for a moment. <She’s a nice lady! She’s one of the lead caretakers here! I’ll introduce you to her if we see her! Ooh. We should go see Big Jim!>

<Big...Jim?> That name sounded familiar, and as he trotted off I had to race to catch up. <Wait, Big Jim? The gorilla from the movie?>

<Well yeah! What, did you think he was a guy in a costume? Nah, he’s a real gorilla!> Denirit led me through a maze of exhibits, some of which we stopped to look at properly and some of which we just glanced at. He paused very suddenly at one exhibit and pointed excitedly at something orange in a bush. <That’s Sebastian!> He looked around. <I don’t see the other one. But that’s definitely Sebastian. I’ve got a stuffed animal that looks just like him! You’ll never guess what I named it.>

I wracked my brain for a moment. What kinds of things would someone name a tiger? <Um...Shere Khan?> <Nope!> <Hobbes?> <Nu-uh.> <Tigger?> <Try again!> <Tony?>

Denirit snorted. <No, but good try! Nah, I named it Prince Jake.>

<OH!> I stared at the tiger in the enclosure. It wasn’t doing much, just laying in the shade under a tree and staring at everything like ti was bored. <Wait, so is that the tiger that Jake acquired?>

<Yup!> Denirit beamed. <You’re going to see that a lot, actually. The Animorphs broke into this place repeatedly to acquire morphs, and a lot of the bigger animals are still around! There’s Jake’s tiger-> He made a motion at Sebastian- <Marco’s gorilla, Rachel’s grizzly and elephant, and a few others! The dolphins, for example!>

Huh! For some reason that hadn’t really occurred to me, but that was actually really cool! No wonder they filmed part of the movie here, they could make sure they got the morphs exactly right!

We made our way through the zoo as he continued to explain things, which was cool. The reptile house was neat, the insect house was kind of terrifying, and the red pandas were so cute. I made a mental note of a couple of the animals like Dad said to- Red Panda was definitely on the list, I was sure of it! There was a tropical bird I liked the look of too- I think it’s called a peacock! I actually got to pet one that was wandering around the zoo unattended!

Sometime after we came out of the rainforest exhibit, Denirit looked up into the trees and blinked. <Huh. That bird is following us.>

Oh? That was neat! I waved a hand at it and laughed. <Hi bird!> For a moment the bird seemed stunned, and then Denirit elbowed me a little. I blinked at him, and he shook his head like I shouldn’t say anything else out loud.

<That bird reacted,> he said quietly. <It’s somebody in morph. Come on, we’re going to the back.> He started to trot off before turning. <Wait. Sarifel, can your parents morph?>

<Um, yeah. Dad doesn’t do it though. Mom does it a lot to get around the garden quickly!> I looked at the bird- Shoot, I recognized it! It was a Green Jay, and I knew someone who had that morph! <OH! Hi Mom! I didn’t recognize you at first, sorry!>

The bird seemed to deflate a little. <Hi Sari.> She grumbled to herself, and I laughed. Yeah, it turned out Mom’s plan to inspect the “rhinosauruses” was bunk and she was following us the entire time! She led us back to Dad and demorphed, and he apologized the whole time because he felt like they’d somehow broken a rule or something. I dunno. That seemed odd to me! I mean I’m 7, it makes sense they’d want to keep an eye on me!

Anyways, it turned out it was a good thing Denirit spotted my mom- It was almost time to go do the surprise thing that was totally not getting the ability to morph! Denirit went to go find Jeximi and War-Prince Alloran, and we exchanged our messaging handles before parting ways. With all of that taken care of, it was time for the big “surprise”, and I couldn’t wait!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the contact information Sarifel and Denirit share- Sarifel's username for virtual chat is DandelionLover7, and Denirit's is NormalEarthBoy3. We'll be seeing more of Denirit later!


	4. The Yearling, Pt IV

“Well isn’t it just a bit... odd?” The lady at the registration asked as she eyed my parents. “Andalites get the ability to morph... you know, back where you come from.”

Dad nodded and smiled. <Yes, usually, but I knew the researchers who worked on the project when I was Sarifel’s age. His grandfather was one of the technicians who worked under Researcher Escafil.> Dad rubbed my head. <They never wanted it to be routine or boring. It was about exploration and understanding. That’s the sort of stuff we’ve been trying to teach him.>

<And besides,> Mom said with a slight nod at the zoo around us, <Name a better planet for morphing.>

“Ah, I see. Fair enough.” She nodded to herself as she checked something off on the paper with a pen. “Okay, you’ve been checked in. You’ll want to head that way to meet up with everyone else, and when they start calling for the different age groups, Sarifel will be with the seven-to-ten range.”

I giggled and tried to feign a little surprise. <WAIT! I’m getting the ability to morph?! REALLY?! That’s AMAZING!>

Dad gave me a look that was half-way between embarrassment and disappointment. <Sarifel, what have we told you about volume?>

I grinned up at him innocently. <To crank it up and rip the knob off?>

He tried to continue glaring at me, but eventually he relented with a small smile. <I’m fairly certain that is the opposite of what you were taught, Sari-kala.> And with that, he ruffled the hair on the back of my head. Dad finds it hard to stay mad at me. And no, I haven’t taken advantage of that, yet. I’m saving that for when I crash my first hovercraft or something!

I gave him a big smile. <I know, but I had to act like I was surprised!> I hopped in place to look around. <I already know what I wanna acquire!>

“Ah, yes,” the lady with the clipboard said before handing me a sheet of paper. I blinked at it- It was covered in squiggles! Oh! If I turned it the other way around, it was covered with the Latin alphabet! Okay, that was much easier to read. I quickly read through all the little guidelines as the lady took time to read them outloud.

Guideline one basically said that kids under a certain age weren’t allowed to acquire anything bigger or meaner than the kid is! It was a safety consideration, since morphs with strong instincts are harder to control. I think Denirit mentioned this one to me, so I already knew to keep my eyes on smaller things!

The animals were grouped into categories based on how old the person acquiring the animal was- Five to seven years was limited to just four or so critters, including dogs. Seven-to-ten, my age group, could acquire those plus things like “petting zoo animals”, small birds, and non-venomous reptiles. Ten-to-thirteen could acquire small and medium-sized predatory mammals, thirteen-to-seventeen could acquire the larger birds-of-prey, and eighteen with a plus sign after it could acquire anything with a blue square on the sign at the animal’s cage. Funnily enough, while Big Jim the Gorilla was free to acquiring by anyone eighteen or older, things like tigers, grizzlies, lions, and the zoo’s one liger were off limits.

Guideline two went over the registration process and stated that anybody who got the ability to morph had to go into a database along with photos of any new morphs they acquired! That made sense, but it’s virtually unenforceable. No one can make you report that you acquired something! So right now it’s like an honor system thing, and a lot of people don’t like that. Morphing was meant for research, but because the military commandeered it after the proof of concept was demonstrated, people think of it as a weapon.

Guideline three went over the time limit. Two hours, two hours, two hours. Two hours. Do not forget that number! Two hours. That’s important, every morpher should know that number! It then went over helpful ways to guesstimate or tell time while in morph, and suggested that demorphing early and remorphing is always better than trying to milk every second out of the time limit!

As you probably learned in physics, the time limit isn’t _exactly_ two hours. Nope! The exact amount of time you have to demorph is two hours and sixteen point nine three two four seven one seconds. But that would be a ridiculous level of precision to ask a human to remember. Even Andalites don’t have internal clocks that good! So “Two hours” is better! It’s simpler, more poetic, and a lot easier to remember!

There were a bunch of other things on there too, but I was fairly certain most of them didn’t apply to me. Yeah, they were limiting us to five morphs, but there were always other things I could acquire at home where they couldn’t catch me! And what were the odds that I’d lose my belly button? I don’t even know what a belly button is! Once I read through the whole thing, I was given a pen and instructed to sign at the bottom, which I did.

Then I blinked and wrote my name again in plain English underneath, because I was an idiot and signed in my native language out of force of habit. The lady laughed and accepted it, and with that, I was led in with a number of Human kids.

Dad shifted his weight as we waited in the middle of a giant crowd. Easily a thousand billion people were here! Maybe! I’m guessing, I could only see a sea of legs and smaller Humans, so it probably wasn’t actually a thousand billion people. It sure felt that way, though! Andalites don’t like large and tightly packed crowds that much, so we stayed near the edge the whole time, and Dad was always watching the nearest fire exit.

Mom nudged Dad slightly after a few minutes of standing around. <I’m starting to think you were right when you said we should’ve done this on the Homeworld.>

<Well it’s too late to back out now. No refunds.> He gave a sharp laugh. <Looks like they’re pulling the seven-to-ten crowd up now. Sari, you should probably go get in line.>

<OH!> I blinked and looked around. <Okay!> Within a few moments I’d found the end of the line that was snaking around the crowd and up onto the stage, where kids walked across, touched the cube, then walked down the other side to where their families and assistants would be waiting. I could see Mom and Dad from where I waited, and as the line slowly surged forward, I waved at them.

Another kid came in the line behind me. He was a bit taller than me, with pale skin, curly red hair, and more freckles than I could count! He gave me a big grin before holding his hand out. “HI! I’m Ryan.”

I blinked and shook his hand like I’d seen on TV. That’s what he was doing, I hoped! <I’m Sarifel! Nice to meet you!>

“You’re an Andalite!” He said that like I might not have known I was an Andalite unless he told me, but he was still grinning. So I nodded!

<Yup! I think I might be the only one here! Well, except for Mom and Dad. They’re over there!>

Ryan looked over at them and nodded. “That’s cool! Um... how long have you been on Earth?”

<Less than one of your days, actually! We got here last night! This is part of my birthday trip thing.>

“Oh.” He blinked. “Happy birthday then! How old are you?”

<I’m one!> Apparently this was some sort of amusing thought to him, because he started laughing. I traced over it- <Well, I guess I’d be seven in Earth years?>

“Ah! I’m nine!” He couldn’t stop chuckling though. “Our one-year-olds are useless. I have a little brother like that, and he’s really useless! All he does is yell!”

Well I didn’t have any idea on what I could do with that information, but Ryan seemed nice! I looked around at the line- It was moving really slowly right now, so a little conversation wouldn’t hurt. <So, where are you from?>

“South side of the city,” he said, as if that explained anything. Which city was he talking about? “What about you?”

<I live at the south end of the Silver Creek Valley in the Skybreak Mountains, on Andal!> Much more precise, I thought. He nodded as if he knew where that was- He didn’t, I was sure of it. But he could probably look it up on a map later!

“Ah, that’s far away then,” he said. “Um... how far?”

<Eighty-two light-years,> I said with a knowing nod. It’s actually just a little bit longer than that, like eighty-two point zero seven four something something you get the picture. It’s a lot farther than walking distance!

“Eighty-two of our light-years or your light-years?” Oh. That was... For a moment, I had absolutely no idea how to answer him. Light-years are... no, he was right! Light-years are a unit of distance measured by travelling for a certain amount of time at a certain speed, and Earth years are shorter than Andalite years!

<Um, your light-years, I think.> I whispered to Dad for a moment, and he confirmed that yeah, it’s Earth light-years. A lot of the stars we see are the same, so that makes sense. And since our star system and the Sun are moving in different directions through the same supernova remnant, the distance is going to change over time. Don’t ask me if that distance is going to get shorter or longer over time, though. Even Dad only shrugged when I asked him that!

Ryan nodded and put his hands behind his head and looked around as we moved up through the line. “So what’re you planning on acquiring?”

<Oh! Um... A goat. Definitely a goat. A bird of some sort, maybe that tiny owl that lived in the cactus. Red panda, that thing was cute and it’d be really useful in the trees we have back home... ooh! And a Human! I want to get a Human morph if they’ll let me!> I thought about that for a moment. I had no idea how to mix morphs together, so unless they told me how to do that I’d just have to copy somebody. But as long as I didn’t do anything stupid, that was fine! What was I doing to do, rob a bank?

Ryan grimaced a little. “I don’t think they let anyone acquire anyone else today. There are special procedures for that because of... um... There was that guy on TV they caught, he was stealing people’s identities and taking all their money?”

<Oh.> Well that was a bummer. I scooted up a little further in line. A lot of the cool animals were off limits for morphing- We could only acquire the ones that had blue squares on their exhibit signs, and anything that might bite was off limits. <They said no hawks, right?>

“No hawks for anyone under thirteen,” Ryan reminded me. I thought that was strange. Some of the owls weren’t age-restricted, and neither were the falconets, but anything bigger was. Don’t ask me why, I forgot to ask!

I tried to think about what else I might want to acquire. <What about the Chupacabra?>

Ryan grinned. “If you can find one! Pretty sure they don’t have that here. Or anywhere on Earth, actually, since they got sent back to their homeworld!”

Oh. Yeah, I think I heard about that! What else, what else... <What about the Mothman?>

He laughed. “Pretty sure those only exist online. Ooh, what about Bigfoot?”

<The large feet probably keep him from falling over as often as a normal human, but nah.> I thought for a moment as we scooted forward again. <What’re you going to get?>

Ryan’s eyes lit up. “Serval, definitely. Coyote, if they’ll let me! I turn ten in a couple of days, so it’s not like I’m that far from the age limit. Umm... ” He frowned. “All the cool birds are off limits. Maybe a snake?”

<I thought about a snake, but we get lots of snow where I live in the winter, so it seems like a bad idea.> We scooted forward again. It’s true though, my family lives in the far south, and we get like, ten inches of snow sometimes! <I was kind of surprised they had a _kafit_ here. I wonder if they’ll let me acquire that?>

“Oh! That blue thing!” He thought about it for a moment. “It looked kind of cool but there wasn’t a blue square on the sign... ”

<I know, but it’s from back home for me. Either I’ll get that one here, or I’ll get one back there!> We stepped up onto the platform and gathered around the lady with the cube. They were having people touch it in groups, of course- That sped things up. Ryan and I touched adjacent sides. I felt a small zap that shot up my arm, and Ryan let out a sharp laugh. And that was it, I think! It’s not very complicated. Complicated makes Andalites cringe!

We hopped down off of the platform and joined back up with our families and the volunteers that were helping us pick out morphs. But we weren’t allowed to run off and acquire things just yet- there’s an observation window for ten minutes after you touch an Escafil device where you need to be monitored in case an allergic reaction happens! Luckily for us, no one here was allergic, and so after the ten minute window filled with questions from the parents, we were off!

 

The first stop was the small aquarium they had at the zoo. I didn’t get anything here, actually. It’s just... nothing in here really interested me! All the big stuff like dolphins and sharks were off limits, and all the small stuff like stingrays were for salt water. The stream by my house is fresh water, so I'd never get to use one of those even if I acquired it! Maybe if they had a freshwater stingray, I would have been interested, but they didn’t. So I wasn’t.

Next was the aviary. This was where the kafit and the small owl lived! I looked up at the lady helping us- Dr. Lynn-Robbins, I think her name was. She was this short, dark-skinned lady with a big smile and a never-ending list of things to say about all the animals we saw!

<Excuse me, ma’am? Why is there a _kafit_ bird here?>

That, apparently, was the sort of thing that made her frown. She glanced over at where it was perched all by itself, and it stared at us like we were here to pick on it or something.

“Some idiot collector thought bringing an alien creature to Earth was a good idea. By the time the authorities caught up to him, the _kafit_ had already been starved to the point it couldn’t fly anymore. We’re taking care of it here until we can arrange for a way to get it back home.”

I raised my hand as high as I could. <OOH! Could I try to acquire it? Please?> Next to me, Ryan snorted, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry, but it’s not friendly or anything.” Dr. Lynn-Robbins smiled sadly before moving to help someone acquire a cockatiel. I pouted for a moment- First no human, then no _kafit_ bird. I thought I’d done a good job picking things they wouldn’t say no to!

Mom chuckled behind me. <Don’t worry Sari, there are plenty of _kafits_ back home. I’ll even help you pick one out.>

I sighed and turned my attention to the other bird here that I wanted. Small owls weren’t off limits to someone my age, and I knew I wanted it. It’d be good practice for when I got a bigger bird! I got the lady’s attention and pointed it out. She laughed when I said that was the one I wanted to acquire.

“Are you sure? That’s not one of the ‘cool’ animals everybody asks about.”

<Why isn’t it cool? It lives inside cactuses. And it can see at night! That’s cool!>

That was a good enough answer, and shortly I was presented with a small owl that appeared to be playing dead. Hah! I touched the side of the owl and concentrated like I was told to do. When I was done, the owl squirmed and she put it back with a slight pat on its head.

Over the course of the next few stops I acquired a small number of things! The wandering peacock from earlier? Yeah, definitely that one. It didn’t even try to run, although ow! Getting pecked hurts! It was a lot calmer after I acquired it though! There was another thing I acquired too, a red panda! Tree climbing! Wait, why would I want to climb trees if I just acquired a bird? Because birds can’t climb, duh! And a bighorn sheep! That was the biggest thing they would let me acquire!

I also got a dog! There was a family with a service dog wandering through the park, and they let me acquire it. It was a very nice dog. Mom joked that it was better behaved than I was and wondered if they could trade! Then Dad elbowed her, and she laughed harder.

While we were wandering through the exhibits to find things to acquire, we got to learn a lot about The Gardens. It was about the time where Ryan was trying to acquire a python that somebody- Ryan’s mom, I think- asked if Dr. Lynn-Robbins ever saw the Animorphs when they were breaking in.

“No,” she replied with a slight smile. “But I will tell you that _raising_ one of them wasn’t easy. I can’t tell you how many times Cassie scared the living daylights out of us disappearing like she did sometimes.”

Mom made a noise. <You’re kidding.>

“Not at all! I’ve been working here since she was in diapers. But I guess you could say that means I have some experience with morphing, even if I barely do it myself.”

From there, the tone shifted. People wanted to ask questions about Cassie or about morphing, and I could see it was starting to wear on the lady after the first few questions. I tried to think of other questions to ask- <What’s your favorite exhibit here?> was one I was proud of. But I got drowned out, and after a while I decided I was done. I’d hit my limit anyways- Five morphs! I was going to have a lot of fun practicing those later!

I let Mom and Dad know I was ready to go, and we seperated from the group to go inform someone we’d gotten the morphs we were here for. The zoo staff made me try each morph and then they took a photo of each, and the pictures both went up on a database and on a noteboard showing other people who’d acquired morphs at the zoo in recent days. Hah! That was sure to get some attention, I thought. I was one of like, only three Andalites on the board!

 

As we prepared to leave and head over to the amusement park side of The Gardens to see if there were any rides Andalites could go on, Ryan ran up behind me and tapped my shoulder. “Hey!” He grinned. “Before you go! You said you wanted to acquire a Human, right?”

I blinked. <Um, yeah, but they said...>

“Psssh.” He waved a hand. “I have an idea. Um... don’t tell anybody, but maybe we could trade? You acquire me, I acquire you?”

I glanced up at Mom and Dad, who had definitely already heard all of that. They were communicating privately, and judging by their faces, Dad was nervous and Mom was smiling. After Dad relented, Mom nodded her head.

<I don’t see a problem with it.>

I hopped in place before trying to stay “calm” so I didn’t look like a dork. <Um, okay... .it’s a deal!> At that, Ryan made a whooping noise. I let him go first, and he touched my arm. For a moment, nothing happened, and then... yeah, there it was. Sleepy warmth filled me from the point of contact. You know, like those days where all you want to do is sleep because you’re too comfortable to wake up? It’s a lot like that!

He pulled his hand away and I giggled as I shook the sleepiness off. Then it was my turn, and I acquired him. He wavered where he stood a little, but it was over quickly and then he grinned.

“Thanks! Maybe I’ll see you around sometime!”

<Maybe!> We exchanged some contact information after Ryan’s mom suggested it might be good to be pen-pals. And with that, he whooped again and ran off to catch up with his family. Huh. Well... There was going to be a clone of me running around on Earth now. That was neat! I looked up at Mom and Dad again- Dad was still nervous, of course. But Mom? She was grinning.

<So, now that we’ve broken the rules, I think it’s time for you to find out what really makes Humans special. Daltin, how do you feel about corndogs?>

The look that flashed across Dad’s face made me burst out laughing, and as we set off to find a changing booth near a corndog stand, I began picturing all the things I could do with a human morph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took me a little bit. I had bits and pieces of it done, but hadn't actually tied them together yet. I do that a lot, I bounce from story to story, chapter to chapter. Sorry!


	5. The Yearling, Pt V

I learned some very important things about Humans the first time I morphed into one. We were still at The Gardens, but we had wandered over to the amusement park side, which has all the rides! We found a changing room near the wave pool. Seriously, a wave pool? This close to the ocean? Come on people! The ocean is like, a few miles away! If you want giant waves, go out there! Don’t build an artificial wave generator right next to the ocean, you’re insulting the ocean!

Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah! Morphing Human for the first time! Okay, so it went down like this. I actually hadn’t practiced morphing at all yet. Dad suggested I should try something smaller, like the owl I acquired, but owls can’t ride roller coasters! So I had to put a hoof down on wanting to try my Human morph first. Mom laughed, Dad reluctantly agreed that owls can’t ride roller coasters, and that’s why we started looking for the changing room. We found one pretty quickly and I headed inside. Mom and Dad wouldn’t fit, so it was just me. Alone.

 

Trying to do something I had never, ever done before in my entire life.

 

Okay Sarifel, don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don't think about how you're about to completely be deconstructed at the cellular level and rebuilt into something completely alien by atechnology rushed into service before it was fully tested. Deep breaths. Count to ten. Think of dandelions. Think of all the food you'll get to try! Imagine riding a roller coaster! You can do this! You climbed all the way to the top of a tree once and only fell down a few times, you can do this!

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The process of starting a morph is simple. You focus on the image of the animal you’ve acquired, and assuming there isn’t any Z-space interference, the nanotechnology should begin shuttling your cells off into Z-space while replacing them with cells derived from copies of the DNA of whatever you acquired. Really, there’s so many things going on there, and I honestly don’t understand most of it. I just know that it works and that anybody who knows more about it will tell you it’s nine kinds of terrifying.

So. I focused on the Human morph. The first thing I noticed was that I didn’t notice anything. There wasn’t any indication, internally, that I had started. Or hadn’t started. I kept looking myself over, wondering if there was some sort of “Ding! You are now morphing!”, but there wasn’t. Instead, the first hint I got was when my eyestalks seemed to slurp into my head. I may have yelped just a little bit when that happened.

Mom chuckled from out in the hallway. <Are you doing okay, Sari?>

<I dunno, I can’t see my butt anymore!> I tried to play it off with a nervous laugh, but my hearts were pounding. Or they were, until the ones in my lower torso simply stopped. Oh. _Oh_. I took several deep breaths as the one in my chest seemed to pound even harder, so hard I could practically hear it. I felt my chest to see if I could physically feel my heart, and I paused.

My hand was missing some fingers. I stared at it, and at my other hand as the outer four fingers merged into two fingers. My hands were thicker now, with little coverings on the end of the fingers. I tried picking at one and yelped again- Ow! Ok, leave the finger coverings alone! Why did Humans have these anyways? I couldn’t figure out a use for them at all!

All the while, I felt weird. Like I was being massaged by someone who had no idea how to give a massage. It was rough, with bones shifting into new positions that should have hurt. My organs were squirming and and doing all sorts of weird, burbling, glorping things. I didn’t really have time to consider what was going on with my bones or organs though, because something weird was also happening with my face. There was a strange sensation as it grew wider at the bottom, like grinding a rock against a steel file, and without warning my face seem to just split in half.

<AH!> I clutched at my growing mouth in surprise as something came loose somewhere inside and began twitching. After a moment I realized I could control it almost like a tail- Tongue! Oh, this must be the tongue! Everything tasted...metallic? There was a small voice in the back of my head that said this was the taste of metal. Slowly, that went away, and I ran my tongue over growing teeth with some confusion. And then- <OW!>

Dad spoke up quickly. <Are you sure you’re okay, Sari?>

<I bit my tongue!> I tried sticking my tongue out to see if I could see any blood, but I couldn’t. Where was a mirror when I needed one?

Mom giggled. <Bet you never thought you’d say that before.>

<I don’t know, Seru,> my dad replied. <He probably did it on purpose just to see what it was like.>

<I did noAAAAAH!> At exactly that moment, my front legs decided they didn’t want to exist anymore, and they pulled straight up into my body. I sputtered and tried to pick myself up off the ground with my arms as my hind legs shifted weirdly. I turned onto my side and looked down to see my hooves all the way up to the hock were changing. The hard grey covering softened and split into several wiggly little toes as my ankle suddenly migrated downwards.

Somewhere along the way, my blue fur had vanished and I was turning to some light tan color. That was bewildering, this wasn’t a good color for camouflage! Maybe if I buried myself in the sand, no one would see me, but otherwise it was useless! As I considered that, though, I became aware of a dull ache inside me, like I was full of static. My organs twisted strangely, which felt sour inside me. I figured that was just morphing, though! Nerves gotta reconfigure, organs gotta shift and change, bones have to stretch or shrink. So you know, no big deal.

I thought I was done when my tail slurped up into my spine and my tailblade melted into my backside to form a hard bone at the top of my butt. But I kept looking myself over for another minute to be sure I was done, I guess. Honestly? I was in shock. I was something completely alien, with weird knobbly knees and wiggly toes and only ten fingers. I had hard, sharp things in a mouth and my ears wouldn’t wiggle anymore. It was all just so overwhelming, and I was afraid to try standing up too quickly on only two legs! Especially since that weird feeling inside me hadn’t gone away yet.

I was still trying to figure out how to stand up safely when there was a knock at the door. I looked up at it immediately. <Don’t come in!>

My mom laughed as she opened the door. <Is something wrong, Sari?>

I couldn’t help but groan. <No, but don’t come in! I’m naked!>

<You were already naked,> she pointed out with all the matter-of-factness a Mom can muster. She grabbed me by the shoulder and started pulling up, helping me up onto my feet. I barely got a chance to protest.

<But Mom, I wasn't naked as a Human! It’s completely different!>

<Doesn’t matter,> she retorted. <You’re not going to get any clothes unless I measure you, so there. Now hold still.>

You know how parents are. They don’t listen, and I guess Mom was right when she said I wouldn’t be able to put any clothes on if she didn’t know what size my morph was. So I had to put up with her coming in anyways and studying me for a few moments. As soon as she was done, I demorphed and went outside to wait with Dad. I have to tell you, I thought morphing was going to be really cool, but maybe I should have actually morphed something cool first. Humans are just too weird.

Dad rubbed the back of my head a little as we waited for Mom to get back. <So, Sari, how was your first time morphing?>

<Um...> Between you and me, it was honestly pretty terrible. If I didn't know morphing was the gateway to pretty awesome stuff, I would never want to do it again. But Dad and Mom went to a lot of effort to set this up! So I tried to play it off.

<Human morph was really weird. My insides kept churning even after I thought I was done.>

Dad looked off all knowingly. <I’ve heard Human morphs can be like that. They feel their emotions with their whole body. That’s because of how their nervous system is distributed...I think. I will have to double check. Did you feel the other thing?>

I craned my head back to look at him properly. <What other thing?>

He smiled. <The unbridled curiosity that Humans are known for.> As he said this, I started searching my memories, but nothing like that really stood out to me. I mean, I’m already curious, okay? I’m a kid, it’s practically my job! I told him as much, and he laughed before agreeing that was probably why it didn’t stand out.

Mom eventually came back with some clothes for me: Blue shorts, “flip flops” to protect my feet from burning, and a white shirt that said “The Gardens” on it! Apparently she’d gotten these at the gift shop. So it was back to the changing room to change species and change into some clothes. I morphed again, fell over a couple of times trying to put on the shorts, and then I headed back outside. I had no idea what a correct fit was supposed to feel like, but they didn’t fall off or hurt, so... yay? Mom had already morphed Human by the time I got back outside! Dad didn’t morph, of course, so we had one Andalite escorting two Humans around. Whatever! Weirder things have happened.

As we walked through the park looking for short lines- Mom and I had a time limit, after all- I got a feel for how Humans move. Yeah, humans have fat stupid feet that make a wet slapping sound as you run. And yeah, humans can’t run half as fast as an Andalite. But the acceleration was there! Oh man could I take off! And I could spin in place, I could throw my arms out and just spin until I got dizzy and fell right onto my butt! Dad helped me back up as I laughed. That was a strange, alien sound, but it came naturally, and it felt kind of good!

<I noticed you haven’t really tried saying anything with your mouth yet,> Dad wondered as he brushed some dirt off of my shirt. <Is there something wrong?>

I shook my head just a little too hard and had another wave of dizziness. <Uh, it feels really weird. What should I try to say?>

“I don’t know honey,” Mom chuckled. “Words. Say words.”

<Oh, okay... > I felt around the inside of my mouth for a moment, trying to figure out how this would work. I mean, for most Andalites, a translator chip does all the hard work for you. Me? I don’t have one yet, I’m only a year old! All the English I know comes from TV! But mom said “Say words”, and I know words. So I grinned.

“Wur-dzzz.” I inhaled. THAT had sent a weird shock all through my face, in a good way! “Waurdzzz wohrds wauds wrrz!”

Apparently I wasn’t right even once, but I didn’t care! As soon as I started, Dad wished I would stop, but I couldn’t! There were so many sounds I could make, things that I’d never even heard in English! For a while I got stuck on a ‘lr’ sound, which annoyed Mom to no end because I wasn’t taking things seriously enough or something. But try it! Lrlrlrlrlrlrlrlr! It’s fun!

 

We got into a line at the roller coasters just as the sky started to darken and all the lights began to come on. It was... Well, it was like nothing I had ever seen before! We have colored lights for festivals and stuff back home, but those are lanterns with a soft, warm glow. The harsh, vivid glare of neon and xenon was biting in comparison, but still beautiful.

I could see kids running up and down the fairway, some carrying toys they’d gotten at a booth here. Older human kids were milling about, trying to look like they were too cool to have a good time. Further up the boardwalk, an older lady was carrying a cone of something pink and fibrous. I think it was fiberglass! The bundle of fiberglass was larger than her head, and she had to take chunks off of it to eat it.

I think I stared at the fiberglass lady for a good five minutes trying to figure her out. Humans are weird. I’ve mentioned that, right?

I felt really awkward in the line, just standing there clenching and unclenching my hands. My arms felt heavy and tingly. My insides felt like they were still squirming. I thought it was just jitters, and that it would go away! The first time I morphed, I was nervous, which made sense. But those same feelings were still there, and it made me uneasy. There was definitely something off about being in morph- I felt like something was just wrong. Like I was being squished into a box or something. I didn’t have my tail or my eyestalks, I only had two legs, and I just felt wrong somehow. I shook it off. I mean, I’m in an alien body. It _should_ feel alien. Right?

Nevermind that, I should focus on happy things! Like the roller coaster! The roller coaster looked a lot bigger this close to it, and I only now had realized I’d never been on anything even remotely resembling a roller coaster before. I believe that’s where humans go ‘Gulp!’ Well, at least this one didn’t go upside down? That’s why Mom picked it- She said it would be easier for a first-timer!

Anyways, we made it through the line. We made it up the steps and onto the platform, we made it into the cart, and we were making it up the first hill. There had been a safety briefing, which didn’t give me any confidence in the ride or the riders if one was needed. The restraints were heavier than I realized, the cart smaller and more cramped than I had imagined... All in all I’d say I was not actually that interested in roller coasters anymore.

And I didn’t figure that out until we were halfway up the first hill. Go figure.

<Mom?>

“Here it comes!” She threw her hands up, and that was the moment I remembered we were still on a roller coaster. The bottom fell out of the world as we went over the first drop, and what followed was a two-minute blur of screaming. I don’t remember if it was the happy kind of screaming or not.

As soon as the roller coaster was over, we got off, but I couldn’t walk. My legs were wobbly, my single heart pounded like crazy, and my head tingled in the worst way. Everything was sort of a blur. We’d just barely left the exit line when my insides flipped upside down, and I… well, I threw up.

Dad came running immediately. <Sarifel! Are you okay? What happened?> He tried to grab my shoulder, but that’s when I just fell over onto my side and started crying.  
  
“I don’t…” I managed to gulp out a couple of times. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t get up, I could barely even think. Something was definitely wrong, more than just being dizzy. Everything was cold. Everything was hot. I felt heavy and light, tingling and numb. My hind legs- I tried to kick my hind legs. I could feel them, even though I hadn’t demorphed. I really hadn't demorphed, I knew that, I could _see_ that, but I felt like I had. I felt like I was being crammed into a space too small to fit. My tail thrashed, my eyestalks wilted, my hind-legs kicked, but they weren't even there!

Mom picked me up and put me on Dad’s back, and they took me somewhere quiet. They kept asking what was wrong, but it sounded like it was really far away. Everything felt detached, like I was watching from a camera behind my own head. Even the memory band can't make sense of it, although going back and looking at this late for my journal, I'm not sure I'd want to relive this part in full.

I don’t remember starting to demorph, but I guess I did, because when I fell off of Dad’s back I had four hooves again. My clothes were ruined, and I pulled them off as soon as I could. I wasn’t crying anymore- Human kids cry for help. Andalites don’t. Instead we go very still and make this sort of thought-speak call for help. There’s no words, just a sort of…buzzing of need and distress, I guess. It's actually kind of blurry when I think about it.

Mom, still in her strange Human morph, pulled me up onto my hooves and hugged me. <It's okay,> she kept telling me. It wasn't, though. It really wasn't.

 

That night, as I tried to sleep, Mom and Dad stayed up talking. I could see them with an eyestalk. Dad was looking at some sort of computer and Mom was nestled in against him. Their tails were wrapped around each other- Blech, gross! Mushy stuff like that is just... It's mushy. Like rotten fruit. Too sweet and it gives me the willies.They do that though- They touch each other's faces, they curl up together, they share their breaths sometimes. It'd be cute if they weren't Mom and Dad.

<I don't understand it,> Mom complained. <He was so excited to try it, he wasn't allergic, he adapted to two legs fairly well, there wasn't anything wrong. What happened?>

Dad was more somber than frustrated. <Honey, I'm not sure, but I think... When we first learned to morph, we morphed things from the Homeworld. His first time was something completely alien to him. But according to this article, morphing things that you aren't related to...>

<Everything above the hips is practically the same between Andalites and Humans!> Mom gave the computer a dirty look. <It's not identical, but it's no more different than a _djabala_ or _kafit_. Why would those be better for him?> She frowned deeply as she laid her head on Dad's flank. <When did that article come out?>

<Two months ago.>

Mom hesitated for a moment. <I don't like it. It sounds like more nationalist nonsense. A bunch of puffed up blowhards trying to tell us our kids can't handle morphing things from Earth and that tourism is hurting them, it fits the party line perfectly->

Dad gently interrupted her. <Seru, I don't think that's the issue. The research is all there on the pad. Earth vertebrates...what's the term. They're all quadrupeds or derived from quadrupeds. We're hexapods descended from octopeds. And he had the symptoms, he was... He was mumbling about feeling his missing legs... I think what happened might be _escolhsith_. Earth-life is just too alien for him right now.>

Mom let out a very loud huff. <Great. Just great. How can we both recite Renilith's Law but we both missed _that_? And to think, that crazy old bat called us idiots and we didn't listen. Guess that's why she's the acclaimed researcher and we're just gardeners.>

Dad practically choked. <Crazy old bat? Did you just call Escafil a crazy old bat?>

<I call it as I see it.>

Dad rolled his eyes, but he had that mushy "I love you" face on. Eventually, though, he nodded and sighed. <I think we both should have known morphing something so alien can be terrifying. I mean, we both heard the horror stories. Could you ever imagine becoming a Taxxon?>

<No, I guess not...> Mom sighed. <Humans aren't Taxxons though.>

<Our brains might not know that. All the brain knows is 'Wait, this isn't what I trained for'. The reaction could very well be the same, at least in a beginner.>

Mom snorted quietly. <Okay, okay. You win. I guess I just wanted him to have a good time... Well. There's still two weeks of the trip left.> She stretched a little. <What do Andalite tourists who don't like morphing do when they want to have a good time?>

<Sightseeing, mostly.> Dad checked his computer again. <There was a place he really wanted to go, it's not too far from here I think...>

They kept talking after that, but the only part I could hear was that word echoing between my ears again and again. Mom complained about parts of the trip being ruined, Dad worried that they should have tried something else, but that word stuck with me. _Escolhsith_. Morph anxiety. Morph dysphoria. I didn't really understand what that meant at the time.

DNA is universal- It's the most stable naturally occurring nucleic acid, and there are dozens of those things, but DNA wins out. Amino acids are the same too- There are hundreds of potential amino acids, but the same couple dozen keep dominating over and over on every planet because they're the most efficient. These are things I know factually. This is basic biology, any toddler could tell you about it. So how were Humans too alien for me to morph? I just... I didn't get it. Something was wrong with me, something that had ruined the trip.

If there was anything else said that night that might have explained it, I don't remember. I drifted off to sleep with that word echoing in my head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. I've been wrangling with this particular chapter, trying to get the tone exactly right for a while now. I still think I haven't gotten it right, but I didn't want to delay it any longer. I hope it comes out alright!


	6. The Yearling, Pt VI

<Hey. Squirt. Wake up.> Mom nudged me. <Wake up. Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake->

<Imawake,> I grumbled. I hated when she did that repetition thing, which is part of why she did it. I’d have to wake up to get her to stop! But I also didn't sleep very well, so I was a bit grumpy. I grumbled again as she messed with the hair between my eyestalks. <Are we going home?>

<Why? We still have two weeks of vacation left.>

Oh. I tried to shake the grogginess away. I really hadn't slept that well all night, and to be honest, I really would have liked to try the whole sleeping thing again. Just to see if that would make things better. But the look on Mom's face said she had plans and I needed to be awake for them.

I was rubbing my face when she frowned. <Sari, are you okay?>

<No. The whole morphing thing didn't work and you two said I was a Sith. I don't want to be a Sith.>

Mom made a face. <No Sari, you haven't gone over to the Dark Side yet. The word is e _scolhsith._ It means morph dysphoria. Its nothing to be afraid of, you just... Weren't ready for it yet. You'll get the hang of it someday.>

<But it sounded like you had plans for the trip...>

That made Mom laugh. <Not the entire trip, sweetie. Your dad doesn't morph _at all_ , remember? We had to include lots of non-morphing stuff so he wouldn't feel left out.> She sighed and rubbed one of my ears, which always cheered me up. And then she messed with my hair again. Ugh!

<Hey, you're making me look uncool!> I pouted. <All the cool Andalites look like they don’t care!>

She laughed and tapped my nose very lightly. <Hey, I’ll have you know that your mom is _the coolest_. I went to the Academy with Prince Aximili and actually saw the Animorphs on Leera, remember?> Oh yeah! Back in the Yeerk War, Mom was an _aristh_ stationed on Leera as an administrative assistant. That meant she did all the hard work while other people got all the credit. Dad was in the military too, and they met on a Dome Ship. I might have mentioned that before? Anyways, you probably don’t want to hear about that, it’s mushy stuff.

I grumbled for a moment as I ruffled up my fur again. <You said you only saw them for like three seconds!>

<Yeah, there was apparently some sort of anomaly...> She made a face. It was the same face she made whenever Dad started yammering on about Z-Space. <Anyways, what was it you were really excited about visiting? Delaware?>

<Yes mom,> I replied robotically. <Everyone wants to visit Delaware. It is the most desired tourist destination in all the galaxy. No one can resist the Delaware.>

<No silly. We were thinking we might stop at a little island called Alcatraz, maybe look at the Golden Gate Bridge... then just a few minutes flight east of that is Yosemite... >

The next few days were a blur. I got to visit San Francisco! I was so happy! I got to ride a trolley and everything! And that was just the start! Over the next few days we went to a bunch of different places all over the planet, from the Great Barrier Reef to the Serengeti to this really cool place called a _tsingy_ in a bigger place called _Madagascar_. I legitimately didn’t know Earth had sharp bits, but _tsingy_? Very sharp. It was like a forest of limestone spikes!

I did try morphing again, once- The dog morph I acquired. It wasn't as bad as a human, I guess because I still had four legs and a tail, but it still wasn't great. Imagine like, you're at a party! That's what dog morph is like, you're at a party! So you're at this party, and it's a good party and you should be happy, you're trying to be happy, but tomorrow you've got a big test you haven't studied for and your entire future hangs on that test and oh god why aren't you studying and then the party is ruined for you because the anxiety kicks in. Yeah. Not fun. That's what that experience was like.

But Mom and Dad were determined not to let that ruin anything. Dad promised he'd get me a tutor when the cooler seasons came back home, and we still got to go to lots of cool places here! There were lions, tigers, and pears! No bears, sadly. But we did see a pear tree for sale! Pears are actually really awesome and are something of a delicacy back home- You don't morph to eat them, you just step on them and crush them to a pulp under your hoof- so we bought the pear tree and are gonna try to grow pears! Yes!

Anyways, skipping past some more boring parts of the trip and my Dad’s horrible attempt at karaoke, we come to the last day of the trip to Earth. Seriously, I hope to never, ever set hoof in a karaoke bar ever again. The less said about Human singing, the better. But! There’s a bit here at the end I really liked, and that was when we went to a museum!

I woke up on the shuttle we were using as a mobile hotel room and realized Mom and Dad were already up and discussing something. Dad had been out already, it looked like, because the entryway was still open, and when he saw me he smiled a little.

<Hey squirt. Sorry I woke you.>

I stretched for a moment. <Nah, I probably need to be awake anyways! Today’s a good day, I can tell.>

Dad nodded knowingly. <Every day starts as a good day. It’s how you choose to live the day that decides how it ends.>

I rolled my eyes. Great, Dad thought he was a philosopher. I mean, come on, that didn’t even make any sense- some things are beyond your control and result in bad days. Like the morphing thing. Or like if you get hit by a falling tree! That actually happened to Dad once, so maybe it knocked him silly or something.

Mom smiled as she leaned against Dad. <Why do you think today’s a good day, Sari?>

<I dunno!> I finished stretching and hopped in place to face them directly. <Just do! Where are we going today? Is it England? I bet it’s England! I see clouds outside the window!>

Dad chuckled. <Nope, guess again.> I guessed a few times- Scotland (no), Wales (no), Oregon (no), Ireland (no), Cornwall (no), New Zealand (no), Antarctica (no). I tried to think where else might have lots of clouds, but I was drawing a blank, and eventually Dad just gave up and told me. That wasn’t nearly as fun as guessing. I mean, I would have gotten it right eventually! Probably!

<Sari, calm down,> he said with a laugh. <It’s Washington DC.>

I zipped over to the window as soon as he said that. Washington DC! That can mean only one thing! So. Many. Museums! I was practically vibrating as I tried to see which section of the city we were in! Not sure why, the only part of the city any Andalite knows by heart is The Mall. The rest of it is a confusing grid! Seriously, the Humans couldn’t have made a more confusing city if they tried! But still! DC! Museums! So many museums!

I looked back at my parents. <Can we go to the museums? Please? Please please please please please->

Mom laughed quietly. <Where do you think we’re going? Of course we're going to museums, silly!>

Museums! Yes! We were at the Smithsonian Museum of Extraterrestrial Artifacts! We slipped out of the shuttle to take a look around and figure out where the entrance was, or at least that's what Mom did. I realized Dad had double parked the shuttle, so I teased him about it and he had to fix that. Hah! Say what you want about the utility of vertical takeoff and landing, but it’s hard to land in exactly the right spot if you can’t see under your ship!

 

Anyways! The museum! The museum about alien artifacts is... interesting? Okay so it's this big white stone building with lots of columns on the outside. That's a missed opportunity, if you asked me- It should look like a Pyramid! But apparently there's a really big white stick that people here want to see, so they don't let you build tall things and block the view. Inside it had all the things that make Andalites freak out- Smooth stone tile floors. Narrow corridors. Tons of screaming Human children running around. Awkward lighting that feels artificial, dim and dark spots with dramatic lighting, and this odd sense that if you look away for just a second, some of the wax sculptures will stick their tongues out at you. But you know what? Andalite museums are pretty much the same!

Architectural decisions aside, the exhibits in the museum were really neat! Most of the museum is about the Yeerk War of course. They had a section on Dracons. They had a section about Kandrona. There were wax figures of Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Gedd and Andalites. The museum even had a Yeerk, a real live Yeerk, that swam around in a tank while answering questions about the war from the Yeerk side!

“Well well,” the Yeerk drawled through a speaker when we walked up to see what the tank of fluid was all about. “Either I'm getting bigger or Andalites are getting smaller.”

<Hi!> I stared into the tank for a moment. <Uh...there's a Yeerk in there.> I looked back at Mom and Dad. Mom was making a face and Dad seemed to be in awe.

“That's what the sign says,” the Yeerk responded. “Filim Eight-Six-Five at your service. Did you have any questions about any of the exhibits?”

<Uh...> I blinked at the tank of liquid. <Several! Mostly about this tank you have here. How do you see? Where do you get food? Do you get to do anything when the museum closes? Have you ever been inside someone's->

“Whoa, slow down there, one at a time!” Filim laughed from inside the tank. “No, I've never been inside anyone's head. That's the first one everyone asks. I was just a grub when the war ended. Hadn't even graduated Pool Integration yet when we got the prodding and poking about anything we might've done. My pool-brothers and I were, as they say, squeaky clean.”

Dad blinked. <Wait, so if you were born here and not convicted of any invasion crimes...>

“Ooh, that's a question I haven't gotten before. Yup, I'm an American. By law, at least. Don't think the average person sees it that way. I'd ask you to vote for me in a few years when I run for President, but something tells me that would be illegal. Tell you what, I won't tell anybody if you don't. Us aliens have to stick together.”

I couldn't help but laugh at that. <So how did you see us from in there?>

“Cameras hooked up to the tank, actually. I can't actually 'see', but I can interpret the electrical signals through this interface in the back.” A shape drifted across the front of the tank- Yup, definitely a Yeerk. It was really hard to see because the water was so murky behind the glass, but if I squinted- Ah! There was more than one!

<How many of you are there in there?>

“A few hundred of us, actually. All Filims. We're one big happy family. We take turns answering questions, and you might see a couple of us out and about in the clankers. We take turns with those too.”

<Oh.> I frowned. <Seems like that would get boring.>

Filim laughed. “You say that, but I'll let you in on a little secret- We've got WiFi, and on the Internet, nobody knows you're a Yeerk.”

<Oh.> I peered into the tank again. <But are you in Yeerk Jail or something? What do you do for fun? Do you get paid for answering questions and stuff? Like, are you employees? I'm confused, why are there Yeerks in a museum? Why aren't you birds or dolphins or some other kind of animal?>

“No, mess with people online, yes but most of it goes into a fund to buy more of the clankers, yes, and is there anything better than a museum?” Filim chuckled. “As for the _nothlit_ thing, well, Filim Two-Two-Three started advocating that if we hadn't participated in the invasion and we were born in the United States, then we were Americans and they couldn't actually do anything to us. Your government didn't see it that way, but some hotshot lawyer did, and it caused a legal snarl that lasted until they stopped trapping people in morph. Any other questions?”

<What's a clanker?>

“Oh.” The mechanical tones of the tank's speakers turned mischevious. “You know those robot suits you see walking around, leading tour groups and stuff?”

I looked around and yes, there was one nearby! It was bipedal, ivory-colored, and looked kind of like one of those droids from the Star Wars prequels. The uh, pitstop droids. Only it was four feet tall and had two eyes. Hm. I mean, if that's what they want to build, then that's what they want to build, but honestly I thought it looked goofy.

<Oh, yeah.>

“We use those to get around,” Filim explained. “Only we don't have enough for everybody yet. Someday we will, and then we will conquer the world! Or go to the beach! We haven't decided yet.” He must have seen the look on Mom's face, because he quickly added “Kidding! I'm kidding!”

After that, Mom and Dad decided that we couldn't spend the whole day talking to Filim, so with some effort they got me to say goodbye and we trotted off to see the rest of the museum. As we passed a statue of a humanoid moth, Mom spoke up.

<I couldn't help but notice the glass on the front of that tank was several inches thick,> she said hesitantly. <Is Human glass that bad?>

<No,> Dad responded. <That was likely to protect those Yeerks from vengeful idiots. Still...> He shrugged. <Interesting. I wonder if the War-Prince knows about->  
  
<Please don't bring Alloran up,> Mom whined. <I would like to get through the rest of the trip without dealing with _that_ nightmare. It's bad enough that we have to keep an eye out for Yeerks here. The sooner we leave, the better...>

<I think it's okay as long as no one tries to climb into my ear,> I chimed. <I just cleaned it and I'd like to keep it that way.> Mom and Dad both gave strained laughs, the kind that said I shouldn't say things like that. I thought it was pretty funny! But they both fought against the Yeerks, so I let it drop and started looking around the museum again.

 

Some of the exhibits in the museum weren't related to the Yeerk War. That was the really interesting part! Some of the tthings here were given to Earth by other planets after the war. Sort of like “Welcome to the club” and “Thanks for helping” gifts! That was neat stuff. There was a Leeran sculpture crafted from a pearlescent material. A Hork-Bajir wood carving of something horrible from their Homeworld. A Sstram shiftcrystal was proudly on display in a brightly lit glass case, casting a bunch of colorful lights everywhere as it squirmed and twitched. It almost looked like it was trying to escape! Silly rock! But yeah. Lots of neat stuff.

My favorite section ended up being the one I wasn't expecting at all, though. “Alien History of Earth”, a banner said in bright big letters. “A look at alien activity on Earth through the ages.” Well well! That had to be interesting! I quickly guided Mom and Dad inside, and what we found was a mix of silly, weird, bizarre, and awesome.

Wait, you cry. When did aliens visit Earth? The Yeerks were the first contact, right? Nope! Earth has been on Andalite star charts for over two thousand years, and plenty of people have come to visit! You see, even though Earth is a bit out of the way, it’s always been a good place to get oxygen and water. Also, Pyramids. Humans invented the Pyramid. People always wanted to see that!

Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. How did Humans _invent_ the Pyramid? A Pyramid is just a giant pile of rocks, a fancy cairn at the most! Every civilization in the galaxy builds cairns! So how did Humans become the first civilization in all of Galactic history to build Pyramids? Well, it’s a bit funny, but the fact is Humans really like messing with rocks. Everybody stacks rocks, true, but no one else puts _that much_ effort stacking rocks. So that means Humans, by virtue of wasting time on things no one else bothers with, are the undisputed experts on stacking rocks on top of each other. Hence the Pyramids!

 

After we got through the section on “ancient astronauts” and the Nazca Lines- apparently an early Human attempt to signal aliens or something- we passed the remains of a silvery weather balloon. Dad stopped to look at it before he groaned.

<The one time the alien wreckage _actually was_ a weather balloon,> he moaned as he read the little plaque, <They said it was “debris from a Soviet rocket”. Typical. Just typical.>

<Wait, why would they cover up a weather balloon?>>

Dad shook his head. <Because politicians are the same everywhere. They want stability so they can stay in power. An outside context problem like aliens could startle the public, so whenever something like this happens-> He gestured at the weather balloon- <the Human governments would say “Oh no, that was a weather balloon” to keep people from panicking. But when it _actually was_ a weather balloon, they said it was something else. They lie even when they don’t have to.>

<Oh. Okay then.> I turned away from the exhibit and saw something big locked inside a giant plexiglass box. It was a big cube, maybe eight feet on a side with rounded corners. It had a door on one side that was closed. It had several pipes running along the exterior. And there was no obvious control or guidance system. The few lights on the device all glowed a soft green. I recognized the symbols that adorned the exterior, and I started giggling like crazy as I walked over to look at it. Mom and Dad turned to see what I was giggling at, and both of them groaned.

<Oh no,> Dad said with a suppressed laugh as he read the plaque. <”Unidentified Artifact. This object fell from the sky in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, where it collided with a weather balloon that was part of Project Mogul in the world-famous Roswell Incident. It was held at Zone 91 from 1953 to 2001. During the Yeerk War, the Yeerks unsuccessfully attempted to crack it's secrets. The war ended before they could identify the artifact. On loan from the United States Air Force.”> He turned his stalk-eyes to me with a mischievous grin. <Do you think we should tell them?>

<Nope!> I replied as I continued to laugh and read some of the accompanying information about all the tests the Humans and Yeerks ran on it. There wasn’t any point in spoiling all their fun! I mean, how bad do you think they’d feel if we told them the device they’d studied for so long was an old toilet?

Funny thing, those exhibits. There were a lot of really neat ones. Did you know the Humans apparently saw a series of battles in the sky over Germany between 1561 and 1566? Or that the Humans think an Andalite might have influenced Human software design in the early 1980s? Did you know that crashed spacecraft were sometimes made into jewelry or weapons such as swords? Did you know the Skrit-Na buy thousands of gallons of Dr. Pepper every year? Really neat stuff! I mean sure, some of the stuff is pure speculation, but after the Yeerk War, this kind of speculation wasn’t far-fetched anymore! Maybe aliens really did draw appear to the Mesoamerican cultures? Maybe aliens really did have a supply center in ancient India? Without a time machine, who could really say for certain?

But yeah, this museum was neat, and it reminded people that Earth wasn't alone anymore. The Alliance of Free Peoples has something like three dozen races in it- Andalites, Humans, Desbadeen, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, Mak, Ssstram, and so on and so forth. It’s really just a club of most of the races the Yeerks tried to conquer!

There were some notable exceptions to that, though. The Hawjabran weren’t interested in any sort of military alliance, but maintained friendly relations and a trade agreement. I think they even had observer status! Um, who else, who else... The Anati simply didn’t want anything to do with anybody and remain cooped up in their little fortress star system by choice. The Nahara aren’t really involved either- Poor things were enslaved by the Yeerks for so long, the survivors are having to build an entirely new civilization from scratch because every trace of the old one was destroyed.

Oh, and there’s another race on Earth the Humans discovered during the Yeerk War. They’re called the Nartec! Problem is, the Nartec are apparently delusional because they think they should rule Earth. Uh-huh. 50,000 fish people versus 6.9 billion Humans. Yeah, that math doesn't work out. Especially because a couple years ago the Humans went in and forcibly removed the nuclear weapons the Nartec had stolen. Now the Nartec are just a bunch of grumpy fish who do nothing but yell at everyone.

 

Anyways. That's my trip to Earth. After the museum we saw some other stuff around DC, and then we got in the shuttle and headed back up to meet the cruise ship that was taking us home. I'll tell you about the cruise ship sometime, but for now I think this is a good spot to stop. Until next time, journal! This is Sarifel signing out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this is the first time skip! I've already gotten part of the next section written out, but the last chapter held me up a bit. Sorry about that!


End file.
